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FHD Remix Chapter 5

2019-10-21T04:13:17Z

Fhd remix: /* Chapter 5: Glie's Only Defender */ Indestructible link was to a mirror, now is properly Official; dead link note for TMoW (no known mirror, please edit in a link if you know of one)

[http://haibaniki.rubychan.de/wiki/FHD_Remix Back to FHD Remix main directory]

Previous: [[FHD Remix Chapter 4]]: The Final War Begins

== Chapter 5: Glie's Only Defender ==

[''Indestructible'', title and Track 1 of Disturbed's 2008 album published by Reprise, Inc./WMG]

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aWxBrI0g1kE Official Disturbed video for ''Indestructible'']

[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IwMxhWG9yVE ''Tatakai, The Master Of War'' video] (dead link since 2019 March 9)

She wanders into the forest in the dark in her white robe and sandals, no lantern, no map, only the voice of her Saviour to guide her steps. She is tracking her direction by the stars; constellations she doesn't recognize, and had begun to mark down. She was also memorizing the appearances of distinctive trees, even turning around so that she would recognize them easily on the way back. The wall loomed ever higher and higher, and Tatakai was amazed at how tall it was, over a hundred metres.

<Five months?> she ponders, < I'm called to a Day of Flight after only five months as a haibane?> It is her first summer in Glie. She's had three jobs, apparently unable to find anything that both fits her talents and that she is allowed to do as a haibane.

Emerging from the West Wood, she can finally see the wall. She feels a rumble every minute or two. At one of the rumbles, she sees a piece of the wall fall away from the badly spalled stone face, which bulges towards her.

"My God!" she whispers, "I'm not even allowed to touch this. Even if I could, nothing in my power could do anything."

<You are ''Tatakai,''> her Saviour says

God calls to her mind a song she heard as a child in her previous life, even before her flying wings had grown. Over a hundred years before she was born, it was written by a drum-chant band named ''Disturbed,'' but she doesn't remember that part.

First the sounds of an ancient battle fill her ears, ancient even by the standards she was used to as a featherwing, although today she can't help but imagine the characteristic final cry of the creature she forgets is called a "Guardian" or the discharge buzz of her super-cannon. The sounds of her kind flapping through the air, and the ancient cry of an airstrike warning siren.

She begins to sing, hoping the point will soon make itself apparent:

''"Another mission: the powers have called me away
 ''Another time to carry the colors again
 ''My motivation: An oath I've sworn to defend
 ''To win the honor of coming back home again
 ''"No explanation will matter after we begin
 ''Unlock the dark destroyer that's buried within
 ''My true vocation, and now my unfortunate friend"''

She defiantly points her finger at the wall, remembering, even as those ancient forces of darkness obviously won ''her'' war. No power can stand up to ''The Saviour.''

 ''"You will discover a war you're unable to win
 ''"I'll have you know
 ''That I've become
 ''Indestructible"''

Her wings begin to glow, starting to outshine her halo ... maybe she hasn't noticed.

 ''"Determination that is incorruptible
 ''From the other side, a terror to behold
 ''Annihilation will be unavoidable
 ''Every broken enemy will know
 ''That their opponent had to be invincible
 ''Take a last look around
 ''While you're alive
 ''I'm an indestructible
 ''Master of War"''

A straight bolt of light flies straight up out of her body into the sky for a few seconds. She starts pacing back and forth in front of the wall, either ignoring or encouraged by this light. It fades as she continues to sing.

 ''"Another reason, another cause for me to fight
 ''Another fuse uncovered for now for me to light
 ''My dedication to all that I've sworn to protect
 ''I carry on my orders with not a regret "''

She reaches over and strokes her own wings while she continues to sing:

 ''"A declaration embedded deep under my skin
 ''A permanent reminder of how we began
 ''No hesitation when I am commanding the strike
 ''You need to know that you're in for the fight of your life"''

The glow starts again.

 ''"You will be shown
 ''How I've become..."''

Flashes in several directions accompany the song's title word

 ''"Indestructible"''

She starts pointing her arms and gesturing, to see how much command she has over this new light.

 ''"Determination that is incorruptible
 ''From the other side, a terror to behold
 ''Annihilation will be unavoidable
 ''Every broken enemy will know
 ''That their opponent had to be invincible
 ''Take a last look around
 ''While you're alive
 ''I'm an indestructible
 ''Master of War"''

For thirty six seconds she is silent, listening to the song in her head. She realizes that the light she now wields is combating the darkness of the night, and the evil just on the other side of the badly deteriorated wall. She figure that it's probably been neglected because of the delta radiation seeping through it. Suddenly sensing that the evil she chants against is trying to regroup, she holds out her arms and continues to sing:

 ''"I am Indestructible
 ''Determination that is incorruptible
 ''From the other side, a terror to behold
 ''Annihilation will be unavoidable
 ''Every broken enemy will know
 ''That their opponent had to be invincible
 ''Take a last look around
 ''While you're alive
 ''I am indestructible, indestructible"'

Quickly, she climbs the pile of broken pieces, reaches out and plants both hands flat on the face of the wall, singing ever more loudly, commanding her light through the wall to the other side. She has no idea what she's battling. The light swirls off her fingers, along and through the wall.

 ''"Indestructible
 ''Determination that is incorruptible
 ''From the other side, a terror to behold
 ''Annihilation will be unavoidable
 ''Every broken enemy will know
 ''That their opponent had to be invincible"''

The light is somehow repairing the wall in front of her. It retreats from her touch as its bulge is reversed, and the debris pile under her feet shrinks as its particles return to their original place inside the wall. When it stops, she spreads her arms wide in front of the wall, commanding this fascinating new light to repair the entire height in front of her.

 ''"Take a last look around
 ''While you're alive
 ''I am Tatakai
 ''The Master of War!!"''

--------

On the other side of the wall is a frustrated and mortally injured Hogosho, a modern evolution of the ancient Guardian that Tatakai could so easily defeat on the wing with BFGs and rocket launchers. This Hogosho had built in eyes, and was by her own reckoning, entirely invulnerable to any weapon she had previously encountered. But she hadn't ''previously'' encountered ''this.'' She had been ramming herself against this part of the wall since the earthquake that winter, learning from the Toga that it was not inhabited on the other side. She thought the Haibane were harmless, especially these little girls, scared not just of the wall itself, but of the woods between it and their home. The Hogosho had been looking forward to a feathery snack, curious as to how similar they might be to the extinct ''Featherwing'' creatures that almost wiped them out at Armageddon.

She collapses, dying in front of the intact, almost polished, wall, twitching and groaning. The only damage that remains is the dusty trough in the ground between her current position and the wall proper. She realizes as she slips out of consciousness, that there was only one power left that could have defeated her at all, let alone so easily: that of ''The Saviour.''

--------
[Video coverage ends]

Menmo catches up to the ancient warrior first, rather surprised to see Tatakai standing there in front of the wall. Kurai is next.

"You're still here!" she cries.

Tatakai scoffs, "What? Where else would I be?"

Menmo explains, "The light we saw looked just like a Day of Flight. We thought you had left us forever. I was a little skittish because you've only been with us for five months."

Shimoni catches up, then gasps, "Oh my! They ''fixed'' it! I've never seen it this nice!"

Tatakai turns and asks in an almost disgusted tone, "Who's they?"

Shimoni says, "The Toga, I think."

Tatakai turns back to the wall and says, "I fixed it ... with help from the Saviour, of course. The enemy was damaging it on the other side, so I sent some light through the wall. Something was trying to get through. Perhaps I'll never know what."

She looks at her right hand, feels it with her left, and huffs. In a squeak, she asks Kurai, "Do you know your way around that herb garden? ... I have a nasty case of delta radiation poisoning. I wasn't planning to touch the wall when I came out here, so it's a good thing you followed me," Tatakai says.

Menmo's eyes go wide, and she screams, "You ''touched'' the wall? How many times have you been told!?"

Tatakai realizes that she screwed up. The light at her command could have repaired the wall just as easily without her actually touching it.

Shimoni intervenes, "I'm glad we found enough string to make it all the way. We don't have the same ability to navigate like you, Tatakai. I'm also glad I brought the scooter."

Menmo seems merely frustrated at Tatakai's seemingly cavalier attitude towards one of Glie's oldest and most respected rules.

They mount the scooter and Shimoni starts driving. Shimoni says, "No one has ever touched the wall before. I don't know what to do."

Tatakai responds, "I seriously doubt you're correct. I remember my own kind had trouble remembering their history very far back. It seems like the Haibane Renmei have the same problem. If no one had ever touched the wall before, it doesn't seem likely that the Temple Garden would have everything we need to treat delta radiation poisoning. I'll write up a list when we get back. Who knows the garden best?"

"Kurai," says Shimoni.

"Just as I thought," says Tatakai, "''Gun'' it, please." Tatakai rests her head on Shimoni's back as the 'new' word attaches itself to some of her dreams.

Back at the guest room, Tatakai sits in a chair at the table. Shimoni tapes a pencil to her right index finger. "You are freezing cold," she gasps, "How can you stand it."

"Easily," sighs Tatakai, "the radiation has screwed up my nerves so much that I barely feel anything. It also feels like I've lost a couple of stones of weight ... like I'm being vaporized from the inside out. I remember how it messed up the extra senses I had in my previous life ... it was quite unnerving to not hear the ground any more."

Tatakai continues to write her list of herbal ingredients. Kurai and Menmo, arriving on their slower bicycles, arrive just in time for Tatakai to finish. "Pick them in this order," she instructs, "The ones that need to be fresh are at the end. If you pick them first, they will lose medicinal value before you get back. I don't remember how this remedy works, although I'm sure I once knew. All I know is that this is it. Hurry, I might be the only person in the city who can defend it."

Shimoni drives with Kurai to the temple. Shimoni is the only person who can take a scooter around the catwalk, although this will the first time she's ever done it with a passenger.

"Menmo," Tatakai sighs, "help me to the bed." At this point Tatakai can't walk on her own. Unable to even stand, Menmo picks her off her feet and carries her to the bed.

"Tatakai," Menmo remarks gravely, "If this keeps up, you're going to start growing frost."

"It won't," Tatakai says, "In about an hour, my temperature will skyrocket so much you'll think I'll burn the place down." Uselessly feeling her own forehead, she adds, "Perhaps it will help if you get a bath started, one that is slightly cool to the touch," she gasps. "I'm scared, this is I think about four or five times the dose I got in my previous life."

The two haibane on the scooter drive it around the catwalk at high speed. Shimoni screams over her shoulder, "We can't slow down, or the lift of our wings will not hold us to the wall." Both are bent forward on the almost sideways moped.

Kurai responds, "You know how easily we could die right now?"

"Yeah," Shimoni squeals, "Our odds are still better than Tatakai's."

They halt at the temple, jumping off the scooter before it is even stopped. Kurai has her list out as Shimoni rams through the door uninvited. Without waiting for permission to speak, she says to the Communicator, "Tatakai has repaired the wall in the West Wood ... that light show you couldn't have missed if you were anywhere near a west facing window. She used the light of The Saviour against an enemy that was attacking it from outside."

"She Flew?" the old man in the mask asks.

Shimoni responds immediately, "No, athough I'm sure Tatakai could take her Day of Flight whenever she dang well wants."

The Communicator gasps as Kurai starts going about, following her list. "This one," she points out a tree to Shimoni, "then that one ... second and third on the list ... I'll get the first, fourth and fifth ones over there."

The haibane race from tree to tree picking seeds and clipping leaves. Kurai gives very specific answers whenever Shimoni turns to her for instructions.

The Communicator recognizes the pattern and asks, "How do you know which herbs and what order?"

Kurai answers, "Tatakai made this list. She remembers the recipe from her previous life. She's got it bad."

Shimoni emerges from deeper in the garden with her bag.

"We have everything," Kurai says, "Let's go."

The Communicator rushes out after them, noticing the scooter. He gasps in disbelief, "How did you get ''that'' here?"

"''Very'' carefully," Shimoni points out as she takes off at high speed. The sun is just starting to rise.

They arrive at Old Home to an alarming scene. Tatakai (in her robe) is in a steaming bath with a towel over her head.

Kurai gasps, "Menmo, what the heck? A ''hot'' bath is the last thing she needs!"

Kurai says this just in time to see Menmo set an old freezer's frosty evaporator coil in Tatakai's lap under the water. "This heat is coming from her," Menmo says as she aims a housefan at the humming compressor and condenser, "I ran out of ice almost an hour ago." To Tatakai, she asks, "Is that helping?"

Tatakai nods. As Menmo pours some water over her head to cool the towel, she turns to Shimoni, who's more familiar with the old freezer guts, and gets another nod. Kurai and Shimoni rush to the kitchen to prepare the medicine.

"''Kusee!''" Shimoni mutters as she grinds up the herbs in a mortar, "This stuff ''reeks!!''"

Menmo comes in as the brew steeps, "What a stench!" she cries. She carries it into the washroom, where they hold it to Tatakai's lips. She can't lift her arms out of the water, but slinks lower into the tub to increase the angle, aggressively consuming the brew.

Once swallowed, Tatakai throws up half of it into the bath. "Ew ... the flavour's about right, I hope I got enough of it down."

Kurai then asks, "When will we know?"

Rasping, Tatakai answers, "About an hour ... either way."

Next: [[FHD Remix Chapter 6]]: Life In The Moat

[http://haibaniki.rubychan.de/wiki/FHD_Remix Back to FHD Remix main directory]

FHD Remix

2019-10-21T04:07:30Z

Fhd remix: /* FHD Remix: Three Worlds In One */ My YT channel was deleted on 2019 March 9, updated theme link to re-upload at minds.com

Return to [[Long Stories]]

== FHD Remix: Three Worlds In One ==

Terry Wilson (and the Storyvoice of the Featherwings)

Fifty-four years after Reki's Day of Flight, our familiar faces have left the nest. Old Home residents now include Shimoni (Downward), Kurai (Gloomy), and Menmo (Fluffy). An earthquake, just a tiny one, shakes up not only Old Home, but all of Glie. That same day, a young lady emerges unnoticed from a cocoon in the North Wing and starts calling for help. Her name is Tatakai (Battle). In her cocoon dream, she is a featherwing angel, her career in the battle against the forces of hell begin when the secretive Featherwing Brotherhood arranged the young Marine to get shipped to Mars. They had learned where the teleportals of Union Aerospace Corporation truly lead: Hell. She later dies in the Battle of Armageddon. Soon, the strange young lady, the first inhabitant of Glie to place the city's context in hundreds of years, realizes that her life may have ended, but her job has not. Tatakai and the other Haibane of Old Home must lead Glie in a desperate struggle for survival.

FHD Remix is a fan fiction combining the worlds of Featherwing Love (also by Terry Wilson, user Fhd_remix), Haibane Renmei, and Doom 3 (the apocalyptic shooter game by Id Software)

Opening Theme: [https://www.minds.com/media/1032720771012710400 Precious Child] (to the tune of "Free Bird" by Kou Ootani)

[[FHD Remix Chapter 1]]: Precious Child; A Shaky Start; The End of The World

[[FHD Remix Chapter 2]]: Forgotten Beast; Familiar Mask; Silent Towers

[[FHD Remix Chapter 3]]: Doom

[[FHD Remix Chapter 4]]: The Final War Begins

[[FHD Remix Chapter 5]]: Glie's Only Defender

[[FHD Remix Chapter 6]]: Life In The Moat

[[FHD Remix Chapter 7]]: The Annual Attack

[[FHD Remix Chapter 8]]: Yaiba's Perfect Day

[[FHD Remix Chapter 9]]: Your Name Is Battle

[[FHD Remix Chapter 10]]: The Chase Begins

[[FHD Remix Chapter 11]]: A Healing Touch

[[FHD Remix Chapter 12]]: The Problem With Angels

[[FHD Remix Chapter 13]]: Glie's New Mayor; Spread of the White Wings; Oops!

[[FHD Remix Chapter 14]]: A New Bird; An Old Trap; The Light Of Rain

[[FHD Remix Chapter 15]]: Objects In Mirror; Orders to Follow

[[FHD Remix Chapter 16]]: Cancel That Transmission!

[[FHD Remix Chapter 17]]: Seven Weeks Without Toga; Transmission Received

[[FHD Remix Chapter 18]]: Not So Lucky; Bubba's New and Used; Power Failure

[[FHD Remix Chapter 19]]: Always Apart

[[FHD Remix Chapter 20]]: The Haunted, Gloomy Haibane

[[FHD Remix Chapter 21]]: Foreshadows of Forgiveness; Noble?

[[FHD Remix Chapter 22]]: Big Featherwing Gun

[[FHD Remix Chapter 23]]: Source X

[[FHD Remix Chapter 24]]: Gates of Hell

[[FHD Remix Chapter 25]]: Sortie to Hell

[[FHD Remix Chapter 26]]: Wings For The Wingless; Tatakai's Terror

[[FHD Remix Chapter 27]]: Everything You Need For A Garden

[[FHD Remix Chapter 28]]: The Threat Within Glie

[[FHD Remix Chapter 29]]: Life Outside The Wall

[[FHD Remix Chapter 30]]: A Bird's-Eye View

[[FHD Remix Chapter 31]]: Names for the Birds

[[FHD Remix Chapter 32]]: It's Up to You, Now

[[FHD Remix Chapter 33]]: Jack and Devon Campbell

[[FHD Remix Chapter 34]]: Retreat!

[[FHD Remix Chapter 35]]: Recon Zulu

[[FHD Remix Chapter 36]]: The Airlift

[[FHD Remix Chapter 37]]: Let Me Not Forget

[[FHD Remix Chapter 38]]: Flashover!

[[FHD Remix Chapter 39]]: Return to Humanity

[[FHD Remix Chapter 40]]: Kurai's Bird

[[FHD Remix Chapter 41]]: I'll Go Fill The Tub

[[FHD Remix Chapter 42]]: Tears For the Toga

[[FHD Remix Chapter 43]]: Homes For the Toga; Growing in the Garden

[[FHD Remix Chapter 44]]: Battle of the Great Gate

[[FHD Remix Chapter 45]]: Market Square

[[FHD Remix Chapter 46]]: The Traitor's End

[[FHD Remix Chapter 47]]: True Clock; Origin of Glie

[[FHD Remix Chapter 48]]: The Deployment Story

[[FHD Remix Chapter 49]]: Operation Tatakai

[[FHD Remix Chapter 50]]: A Desperate Dictator

[[FHD Remix Chapter 51]]: Bride of The Saviour

Previous volume: FHD Remix: The [[Rise of Glie]]

Next volume: FHD Remix: The [[Battle of Haibi]]

Return to [[Long Stories]]

Battle of Haibi

2019-03-20T05:59:25Z

Fhd remix: /* FHD Remix: The Battle of Haibi */ Chapter 18half link added

== FHD Remix: The Battle of Haibi ==

by Terry Wilson (and the Storyvoice of the Featherwings)

Ever wonder why Glie has no computers and no airplanes? How does a city with an mystical single piece stone wall that can almost read the minds of its inhabitants (at least the winged ones) hasn't got the faintest idea what's outside the wall? Join Haibane Roku, Kabocha, and Samurai over a thousand years before Rakka emerges at the beginning of ''Haibane Renmei'' and learn how the mighty city of Kikotsu no Haibi forgot its very name.

FHD Remix is a world blending fanfiction of Terry Wilson's ''Featherwing Love'' (as yet unpublished), Matt Costello's ''Doom 3'' (Id Software 2004, Matt Costello wrote the plot), and of course, ''Haibane Renmei.''

[[Battle of Haibi Chapter 1]]: Kikotsu no Haibi: The Deployment of Souls

[[Battle of Haibi Chapter 2]]: Old Hat

[[Battle of Haibi Chapter 3]]: Growing Pains

[[Battle of Haibi Chapter 4]]: Birth Without Violence

[[Battle of Haibi Chapter 5]]: Council Meeting

[[Battle of Haibi Chapter 6]]: Trade Disruption

[[Battle of Haibi Chapter 7]]: Broken Wings

[[Battle of Haibi Chapter 8]]: Not a Big Deal at All

[[Battle of Haibi Chapter 9]]: 'Tis the Season

[[Battle of Haibi Chapter 10]]: Tribulation

[[Battle of Haibi Chapter 11]]: Tailspin

[[Battle of Haibi Chapter 12]]: Precursors

[[Battle of Haibi Chapter 13]]: Air Strike

[[Battle of Haibi Chapter 14]]: Siege

[[Battle of Haibi Chapter 15]]: Flying Lessons

[[Battle of Haibi Chapter 16]]: Willow Branch

[[Battle of Haibi Chapter 17]]: Training

[[Battle of Haibi Chapter 18]]: Feather Conspiracy

[[Battle of Haibi Chapter 18half]]: The Least Gentle of Nights

[[Battle of Haibi Chapter 19]]: Battlestations!

[[Battle of Haibi Chapter 20]]: Siege Command

[[Battle of Haibi Chapter 21]]: Phase Two

[[Battle of Haibi Chapter 22]]: Dooshiyoomonai (どっしやっみない)

[[Battle of Haibi Chapter 23]]: Survivors

[[Battle of Haibi Chapter 24]]: The Longest Night

[[Battle of Haibi Chapter 25]]: The Enemy Regroups

[[Battle of Haibi Chapter 26]]: The Flood

[[Battle of Haibi Chapter 27]]: Hightail

[[Battle of Haibi Chapter 28]]: Tailoring the Defense

[[Battle of Haibi Chapter 29]]: Light of Peace

[[Battle of Haibi Chapter 30]]: Snow Flies

[[Battle of Haibi Chapter 31]]: Triage

[[Battle of Haibi Chapter 32]]: Quarantine

[[Battle of Haibi Chapter 33]]: The Beginning of a New World

[[Battle of Haibi Chapter 34]]: A Knight Saved

[[Battle of Haibi Epilogue]]

Previous volume: [[FHD Remix]]: Three Worlds In One

Next volume: FHD Remix: The [[Rise of Glie]]

Battle of Haibi Chapter 19

2019-03-20T05:57:07Z

Fhd remix: Least Gentle of Nights link added to top

[http://haibaniki.rubychan.de/wiki/Battle_of_Haibi Back to Battle of Haibi main directory]

Previous full chapter: [[Battle of Haibi Chapter 18]]: Feather Conspiracy

Previous: [[Battle of Haibi Chapter 18half]]: The Least Gentle of Nights

== Chapter 19: Battlestations! ==

A Defender of Haibi stands on the wall, watching the evening sun dim red as it nears the horizon. The wind is like a raging gale, but it is only able to disturb the armored robe slightly. The figure has the mask on, cross shaped slits surrounding a round hole in the middle. Attached to the bottom is its chin, with a smaller round hole and no slits. Behind, the being has a black cloth, or something that looks like it. The figure holds a rifle, standing watch as though to say with no words, "No one gets over this wall."

Another comes up beside the first.

"How are you doing, Roku?" Kabocha asks.

"My rod cells are still shot, but I can see red light safely. I've adjusted the oculars to give with a spectrumwide scan from ultraviolet to near infrared, and I can also switch to the far infrared and millimetric modes using my wings." She's still staring at the sun, making no deliberate apparent motion, "It looks beautiful in ultraviolet," she says, "where it isn't so much brighter than the sky around it."

"My advice," Kabocha says, "Is get some rest. Do you think you could run a turret in the morning?"

"Oh, yes," Roku responds, "I could run one right now. Well," Roku says, "I would like a little more practice." Roku and Kabocha go to adjacent elevator pods to descend.

--------

"In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. At this time, the earth was featureless and empty, darkness covered the face of the deep. The Spirit of God soared over the waters. God said, 'Let there be light' and it became so; it was good. God separated the light from the darkness, calling the light 'day', and the darkness 'night'. The ''evening'' and the morning was the first day."

Samurai is listening to this gentle voice tell him a beautiful story about the beginning of the world, lying awake in bed, watching the sun set outside. Tomorrow was Saturday, and he was trying to get some rest.

"And God said, 'let us lift water from water, a layer above and a layer below.' God called the space between these layers the 'sky'. The ''evening'' and the morning was the second day. God said, 'Let the land produces plants that bear seed, and trees that bear fruit, reproducing according to its kind.' The ''evening'' and the morning was the third day."

It was quite a pretty tale, but Samurai wondered why he was hearing it now, while he's trying to get some rest before the expected assault. The sky is a romantic magenta outside his window, freezing cold.

"And God said, 'let us put lights above the sky to further distinguish day and night, and to mark seasons and years.' These he called 'stars'. The ''evening'' and the morning was the fourth day. Then God said, 'let us fill the seas with fish and the air with birds,' and so he created them, each reproducing after its own kind. The ''evening'' and the morning was the fifth day. And God said, 'let the land produce creatures each reproducing after its own kind: livestock, ground dwelling animals, and wild beasts. Let us create man in our image and likeness, to rule over all life, and all the earth.' The ''evening'' and the morning was the sixth day."

Why is the voice putting emphasis on the word "evening" all the time? Samurai ponders as the soft voice continues.

"Before the seventh day God had finished all the work he had been doing, and so on the seventh day, he rested. While relaxing, he touched the seventh day to complete the week, making it holy because on it, he rested from all his work. And the ''evening'' and the morning was the seventh day."

Evening comes before morning. That is one day.

Samurai shoots up in his bed, looking out the window at the stars. He grabs his phone on his dresser and hits the general alert, "All hands to battlestations, all hands to battlestations. This is not a drill. This is not a drill."

--------

Kabocha and Roku were waiting out the one hour quarantine period in the suit room, Kabocha, already out of his robe, but Roku, out of necessity for her sensitive eyes, was still fully suited, and would have stayed that way until back in the convalescence ward.

The public address carried Samurai's voice, but there was no alarm.

"Roku, can you handle a turret now?" Kabocha asks calmly.

"Sure," she answers grimly.

"Take two-four-zero," Kabocha orders, "The one straight out from the Tower. I'll relieve you once I'm suited back up, and you can get some sleep."

"Yes, sir," Roku answers, "God be with us."

Roku emerges from the pod elevator at the top of the wall, examining the sky through her mask. There is nothing. She goes to the turret and looks through the scope. Nothing unexpected. A shimmering along the horizon as though there are a lot of hot engines idling. Given the forces expected, this isn't something that should be surprising.

Suddenly the shimmering blobs take off. Spectre cloaking. Batwings on their way. Samurai, how did you know?

She opens fire. Blue plasma bolts leave her turret muzzle. "All sectors, this is Rok'hyaku Rokujuu Roku, Spectre batwings show up best at nine micrometres wavelength far infrared."

Soon all of the turrets are firing. Squads appear on the wall with rifles and flying packs.

<Be ready to switch to Mode B when they decloak,> Samurai orders.

<Sector Four mortars standing by.>

"No known ground forces are in range," Roku intones quietly, "Give me an adjusting round two thousand out at two-five-zero, to see if there are any Spectre cloaked units."

The batwings seem rather surprised as the round emerges from behind the wall. Suddenly all decloak

"Two-four-zero to Mode B," Roku says.

<All turret operators, remember that we have only sixty rounds each for those big featherwing guns, fifty-eight for zero-nine-five,> Samurai warns, <Make each one of them count.>

Green glowing missiles fly away, claiming several batwings each. Wisely, the survivors retreat after firing several fireballs, destroying none of the turrets, but doing some damage to their mobility tracks.

"They have figured out how to Spectre cloak their seekers," Roku says, "Use Mode A on them"

<Rifles Nine, Guardians at five thousand out at two hundred through two-four-zero.>

<Mortars firing>

--------

"Excellent, Lilith," Maledict signals as he crunches down on a huge tree, which groans under his weight. The gruesome looking batwing demon continues to speak through the talking box on his shoulder, "Your new Spectre Seekers are being ignored."

<Master,> the Guardian he was speaking to closer to the front lines says, < I'm seeing an ''awful'' lot of artillery through my Seekers. Why haven't the wraiths ever reported it? There's no way they built all this in just two weeks.>

The enormous red humanoid beast in the command centre growls, "That is not your concern, Lilith."

<Regardless,> she grunts, <We need to get some ordnance on this artillery before my forces reach the beaten zone, or we're in for it. As I indicated, how effective our portal plasmas will be on this wall is speculative. If wall is homogenous, it will take us hours to get through.>

Erebus looks around the control center, which is surprisingly calm, "Lilith, I haven't gotten any fire orders."

<''WHAT?''> she blurts angrily, < I've sent forty ''myself!!''>

Erebus looks around, two screens have winked out in front of his staffers. He pounds the edge of the shallow pit in which his 'throne' sits, sending a shudder through the walls that appears to knock out a third screen, "What is wrong with our system?" he bellows.

He stands, looking over the shoulders at his petrified staffers to see some screens with frozen maps upon which the battle does not move, and others papered in error messages. The bony fingers of one revenant are frantically tapping keys to no apparent effect. "Lilith, send vocal orders direct to the artillery. Release direct artillery."

<The system isn't releasing command, Master.>

"DAMN!!" he bellows, lifting a ledger sized binder from beside his chair. In his huge hands it's like a paperback novel, "Lilith release codes," and he starts spewing off a series of numbers as little drops of spittle scatter from his lips.

<Erebus, my Seekers!> Lilith cries over the radio, <What the ''hell?''>

An imp turns to face him, "Master, not just Lilith's. They are shooting ''only'' Seekers?"

Erebus adds it up and keys a general address, "All Guardians hold your portals. Say again, all Guard-"

"Transmitter's down!" someone to his left cries in alarm.

On a camera on top of the command centre he sees thousands of angry projectiles rise from inside Haibi, giving the impression of a tidal wave.

"Backup online, signal again, Master."

It is too late. Glowing blue portals hover above the positions of the now vulnerable Guardians as the wave of mortar bombs comes crashing down upon them.

Erebus grabs the imp who was speaking to him, crushes her thorax as he swings her over her shoulder and throws her angrily out of the room down the corridor, severing her arm on a light fixture above his head. Everyone else in the room cringes as he says, "Lilith, can you read me?"

 she cries clearly through, although exposions can be heard on her channel, <The comms chose a despicable moment to crash. Did anyone hear my call to hold portals?>

"How are your forces doing, Lilith?" Erebus asks, trying to calm down.

<Terrible, Master,> she complains, <Sector Four, my own, is doing the worst by far. My Seekers are gone, so are those of all the survivors. My eyes are cloaked wraiths clinging to my back. Sector Two fared not too badly, but overall, I lost over five hundred Guardians.>

"Ouch," Erebus groans.

"Master, may I speak?" a revenant asks politely

Erebus give him a nod.

"There is an incompetent gunner on the zero-zero-five turret who did not shoot any of our Seekers. Their best is on two-four-zero," he explains, "probably the same one who covered the Toga on Tuesday."

Suddenly the lights and all the screens go out. After a second, the backup lights, still nearly as bright as the main lights come on, but the screens are still blank.

"Lilith," Erebus says grimly, "Set the main penetration point on Sector Six, heading three-five-five."

<Erebus,> it's Maledict. The red commander knew his boss was eventually going to chime in, <My box is seeing the whole command centre as destroyed.>

"All the computers are down, looks like somebody died in the server room and flooded it with delta vector," Erebus grumbles, "Either that or Saboath farted."

 he says, he chuckles.

"All but one," Erebus snorts, "I must be getting soft in my old age."

Next: [[Battle of Haibi Chapter 20]]: Siege Command

[http://haibaniki.rubychan.de/wiki/Battle_of_Haibi Back to Battle of Haibi main directory]

Battle of Haibi Chapter 18half

2019-03-20T05:49:44Z

Fhd remix: New half chapter with the enemy's motivational speech by Dylan Thomas; posted in honor and memory of the victims of the Christchurch massacre

[http://haibaniki.rubychan.de/wiki/Battle_of_Haibi Back to Battle of Haibi main directory]

Previous: [[Battle of Haibi Chapter 18]]: Feather Conspiracy

== Chapter 18 and a half: The Least Gentle of Nights ==

(First written on 2018 June 28 when the author discovered ''Do Not Go Gentle'' while watching ''Interstellar.'' Published on 2019 March 20 in honor and memory of the casualties of Christchurch, New Zealand violence which happened on 2019 March 15 when the author discovered it at the beginning of ''The Great Replacement'')

A Defender of Haibi stands on the wall, watching the evening sun dim red as it nears the horizon. The wind is like a raging gale, but it is only able to disturb the armored robe slightly. The figure has the mask on, cross shaped slits surrounding a round hole in the middle. Attached to the bottom is its chin, with a smaller round hole and no slits. Behind, the being has a black cloth, or something that looks like it. The figure holds a rifle, standing watch as though to say with no words, "No one gets over this wall."

''The monster holds a monocle to his eye, pinches it between his brow and his orbit; it was from a battleship's rangefinder, as human spectacles are too small for him. Human books as well, he scratches off the word "Oscure" from a magazine copy he knows is 281 years old; it has not fared well. He liked to keep it, but Erebus, the demon of terror, recalled inspiring the poem he seeks. Victory awaits, and while he could inspire merely the thoughts, his host had selected the elegant form of "villanelle" - Erebus had no interest in poetic forms, but he was so impressed that he memorized it. He crushed the last copy on Earth of this poem and discarded it.''

Samurai is listening to this gentle voice tell him a beautiful story about the beginning of the world, lying awake in bed, watching the sun set outside. Tomorrow was Saturday, and he was trying to get some rest.

"In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. At this time, the earth was featureless and empty, darkness covered the face of the deep. The Spirit of God soared over the waters. God said, 'Let there be light' and it became so; it was good. God separated the light from the darkness, calling the light 'day', and the darkness 'night'. The ''evening'' and the morning was the first day."

''The military commander of the enemy grasps his talking box gently; its cable stretches from its cradle in the ceiling. Pressing, the switch, he utters, "Tonight we destroy the sudden city, the last bastion of our enemies, I have a few words, I'd like you all to hear:''

''"Do not go gentle into that good night''

''"Old age should burn and rave at close of day''

''"Rage, rage against the dying of the night."''

Samurai was well aware this could be the last time he slept in this bed, for his world was going to change the next day. One last night of peace, yet God continued to disturb his sleep with the elegant story of His creation. The sky out his window was a romantic magenta belying the bitter cold.

"And God said, 'let us lift water from water, a layer above and a layer below.' God called the space between these layers the 'sky'. The ''evening'' and the morning was the second day. God said, 'Let the land produces plants that bear seed, and trees that bear fruit, reproducing according to its kind.' The ''evening'' and the morning was the third day."

''A few last sips of whatever beverage the individuals of the enemy had chosen or been given, rarely the former under the grip of demonic tyranny. Their commander continues to recite the dark poem from memory, not knowing that he just destroyed the last readable copy, as the sudden city didn't have one.''

''"Though wise men at their end know dark is right

''"Because their words had forked no lightning,

''"They do not go gentle into that good night."

[Properly, "they" is on the previous line; the error is Erebus' not mine.]

"And God said, 'let us put lights above the sky to further distinguish day and night, and to mark seasons and years.' These he called 'stars'. He also made the angels. The ''evening'' and the morning was the fourth day. Then God said, 'let us fill the seas with fish and the air with birds,' and so he created them, each reproducing after its own kind. The ''evening'' and the morning was the fifth day. And God said, 'let the land produce creatures each reproducing after its own kind: livestock, ground dwelling animals, and wild beasts. Let us create man in our image and likeness, to rule over all life, and all the earth.' The ''evening'' and the morning was the sixth day."

''"Good men, the last wave by, crying no bright

''"Their frail deeds might have danced in a green bay,

''"Rage, rage against the dying of the night."

''Weapons are checked one last time, anxious batwings flex and shift their weight waiting for clearance to take off. Guardians scratch the ground like excited bulls and the fingers of the imps and hellknights sparkle with anticipation.''

''"Wild men who caught and sang the sun in flight

''"And learn, too late, they grieved it on its way,

''"Do not go gentle into that good night."

Why is the voice putting emphasis on the word "evening" all the time? Samurai ponders as the soft voice continues.

"Before the seventh day God had finished all the work he had been doing, and so on the seventh day, he rested. While relaxing, he touched the seventh day to complete the week, making it holy because on it, he rested from all his work. And the ''evening'' and the morning was the seventh day."

''"Grave men, near death, who see with blinding sight''

''"Blind eyes could blaze like meteors and be gay,"''

''Guardians cheer at that line, and Erebus must pause for them if he wishes to be heard.''

''"Rage, rage against the dying of the light."''

Evening comes before morning. That is one day.

Samurai shoots up in his bed, looking out the window at the stars. He grabs his phone on his dresser and hits the general alert. His voice echos through all the corridors and all the defense towers, Central Tower, and the moat: "All hands to battlestations, all hands to battlestations. This is not a drill. This is not a drill."

''The forces advancing on the ground engage their cloaking devices. Batwings and guardians marching along the ground shimmer like the air above a fire's flames.''

''"And you, my father, there on the sad height,''

''"Curse, bless me now with your fierce tears, I pray.''

''"Do not go gentle into that good night.''

''"Rage, rage against the dying of the light."''

"All hands to battlestations, all hands to battlestations. This is not a drill. This is not a drill."

A shimmering along the horizon as unto hot engines idling.
With all the forces of evil assembled, it's not too surprising

The Defenders Haibi enter their turrets and raise their rifles just in time to observe the shimmering blobs take off. Batwings are on their way and hot plasma issues from the top of the wall to greet them in anger.

[''FHD Remix'' author Terry Wilson first recognized in ''Interstellar'' about 1930Z on 2018 June 28, the evil side's counterpart to the Genesis story at the beginning of the Battle of Haibi. It was after this that I searched for and identified the poem and its author. ''FHD Remix'' is fiction and has never made a claim that its hermeneutic is realistic, therefore this is not a claim that ''Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night'' was demonically inspired, although it is inherently a claim that it was plausible. I knew nothing of Dylan Thomas before, so I looked up his extensive Wikipedia page; turns out he's a big name secular entertainer. While a complete wreck by 1914-born standards, he's bog standard for both popular entertainers and a sane individual for died-2014 standards, maybe just a tad below the median of what I've observed to date. (And yes, Robin Williams came to mind.) Therefore it is plausible that he wrote the poem from the thoughts of a demon. That said, ''FHD Remix'' is fiction, so there is no claim that a particular demon of the name Erebus inspired it even if it went to paper similarly in real life.]

[Back in June, I was hesitant to publish this half-chapter. But I cracked open ''The Great Replacement'' by Brendon Tarrant and look what I saw! It is not properly attributed, but there on the second page of the so-called "Christchurch Manifesto" is ''Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night'' by Dylan Thomas. That happened at 05:09Z on 2019 March 20, and I was like "That's it, BoH 18-and-a-half is going online tonight." (I'm in Z-6.) So, I offer my little memorial to the casualties of Christchurch, Sutherland Springs, and all the ISIS-vs-Christian massacres that have gone unreported. "But I [The Saviour] say unto you, Love your enemieis, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and prey for them which despitefully use you, and persecute you; That ye may be the children of your Father which is in heaven: for he maketh his sun to rise on the evil and on the good, and sendeth rain on the just and on the unjust." - Matthew 5:44-45 Authorized King James Version.]

[Also, apologies for the broken links throughout ''FHD Remix: Three Worlds In One,'' my Youtube channel was terminated under false pretenses on 2019 March 9; there were no strikes, no warnings, no notice, and the appeal was denied. My Gmail account was also suspended, so I highly recommend anyone who relies on Gmail for business purposes, get switched to another email service as quickly as possible as it cannot be considered sufficiently reliable if this can happen.]

Next: [[Battle of Haibi Chapter 19]]: Battlestations!

[http://haibaniki.rubychan.de/wiki/Battle_of_Haibi Back to Battle of Haibi main directory]

Battle of Haibi Chapter 18

2019-03-20T05:37:56Z

Fhd remix: Added link to new half chapter "The Least Gentle of Nights"

[http://haibaniki.rubychan.de/wiki/Battle_of_Haibi Back to Battle of Haibi main directory]

Previous: [[Battle of Haibi Chapter 17]]: Willow Branch

== Chapter 18: Feather Conspiracy ==

"Let me get this straight," Tess signs at Nick, "You sealed up some serum from Lake Baikal, and flew with half a pound of that stuff all the way to Siege Command?"

"Yes," Nick replies, "and I couldn't drink the stuff, that's how I wound up half-dead in the Western Grove. I couldn't quite make it back to the Flight Well."

"So your plan is to dump it into Siege Command's computer cooling system?" Tess asks.

Nick's eyes twinkle in the light of the Friday morning of the second shortest day of the year, "You should see what that stuff does to microcircuitry!"

"You're on crack, Nick," Tess responds. What the crows and Defenders know, but few other citizens within Haibi, is that the earth is populated by a quantum virus that turns water into blood. The Saviour ordered the Soul Cube to create it during the False Peace, when the United Earth Government, and therefore most of humanity, was allied with the demons. The virus almost immediately polluted a third of the ocean area of the planet, then mysteriously paused in its progress. Despite the peace and this wonderful source of fresh food, after just three and a half years, the demons decided they had enough of looking at these creatures made in the image of God and elected to wipe them out. At that point, the virus spread until it had converted all water, in the oceans, rivers and aquifers, into blood.

Except, as it turned out, one rather small one in Siberia that is now incorporated into Haibi under the Flight Well, a discovery that surprised the Praeleanthor while they were looking for the best site to Deploy.

Standing blood congeals, and thus, after several months, it separates into the clot and the serum. Fortunately for all concerned, it happens much slower than in normal blood. The blood conversion virus, after several years of letting the serum purify, can infect the water again. Hellspawn who eat blood (quantum virus or natural), metabolize it into delta vector. Delta vector emits delta radiation, and delta radiation does a gruesomely efficient job of ruining most living tissue and semiconductor electronics.

"Here's one for you, Tess," Nick gestures, "We crows are completely immune to delta radiation."

The other crow, next to him, stands there for quite some time, cocking her head on occasion to track the nurses and orderlies wandering into work, occasionally pausing to gaze upon the apparently romantic pair.

Finally Tess says, "Nick, you really are on crack." Then she pecks him on the beak and starts preening the feathers on his head as she signs, "How do we get out of here without blowing our cover?"

"Haibi could well be gone by this time tomorrow," Nick signs. Then he thrashes his toes around and flies to the door.

Nick picks up a small stick, jabs it through the wire, lifts the latch inside the north wing proper, and then flaps his wings wildly to pull open the door a few inches.

"Screw the cover," he had so quickly signed.

"What the heck?" the nurse at the triage desk gasps as a crow with extra long feathers, most artificially extended using dowels in their shafts, soars from the direction of the aviary and lands on the bookcase in the waiting room The nurse turns to see who touched her shoulder and sees nothing. Spinning to see who touched her other shoulder, she then feels something soft smack her in the head and feels the strap of her key card slip upwards through her hair. Angered, she spins to confront the thief and hears the flapping of wings. She turns back just in time to see a second crow tap it against the card reader next to the door. Both crows fly away, leaving the key card on the floor.

"I guess they're well enough to go, after all," Shinzoo says from beside the bewildered nurse.

"Where's Tori?" the nurse snorts, "I can't believe he'd train them to do something like that!"

"He went away, remember that big light show Wednesday night?" Shinzoo asks, "I'm looking after the birds for now, praying that God would send someone who can do better."

"You haibane are so wierd," she snorts as she stoops to pick up her key card next to the entrance.

--------

Roku eats from the meal tray in the dim room, curtains covering the narrow horizontal window. Breakfast is the most tender strips of beef she's ever had in her life, along with stir-fried vegetables, and little strips of slightly cooked tuna tataki.

"I guess hospital food isn't so bad," she says as she looks up at Yuki. They are in Defense Tower Four's convalescence ward on the sixth floor. Roku pauses for a moment, and almost absently taps the tips of her empty chopsticks together next to her ear. Then resumes eating.

"What's that about?" Yuki asks curiously.

"Well," says Roku, exploring the remains of her breakfast, "when you can't see, everything sounds, feels, tastes, and smells better."

"You're not totally blind," he says.

Roku looks at him, trying to focus. "Ow," she says, "A little bit. The battle mask will help, but getting around in forty pounds of armor all the time..." her voice trails off.

"Is something wrong?" Yuki asks.

"Oh, no," Roku says softly. She's a lousy liar. Yuki can tell there is, just something she can't talk about.

"They say it'll be about six weeks before I can return to duty," he clears his throat. There's probably still some fluid getting into his thoracic air sacs from the broken wing. "I can't operate the suit until I'm all better, the wings are kinda essential. How about you?"

"Monday," she says. Suddenly she starts bawling.

Yuki struggles from his chair to a spot beside her on the bed, "Tell me what's wrong," he urges.

"Classified," she sobs, resting her head on her arms, on the meal cart, her unfinished food beside her head.

"Forgive me," Yuki says, "but you're more sensitive than I expected. After experiencing that air strike you weathered on Tuesday, I thought you'd be a tougher hombrè than this. I'm sure it'll work out, whatever it is."

"Monday," she weeps more softly, "It's too late, and they ''need'' me."

"Too late..." Yuki sighs, "for what?" Then he leans back and says, "Oh, shit. Intel thinks they're going to attack before then, right?"

Roku struggles to get back up, then eats a strip of beef.

"Am I right?" Yuki persists.

Roku nods.

"That would explain why all the day shifters are in the training facility at Central Tower," Yuki snorts. "I'm getting a rifle to guard our room. We'll get through this."

"Hey," Roku starts, "boss." She's on the phone. "Yuki's here. I kinda spilled the beans about tomorrow." She winces, "Try ... With the new switches we can set from Mode A and Mode B and back fairly quickly, but... Oh, well ''that'' sucks."

Yuki slumps, "It's bad, isn't it?" he asks.

Roku nods. "Kabocha, I'm going back to bed, put me on the wall tonight, just a rifle. I'll recalibrate my battle mask and do some spotting. I can see a little, yes. I think I can make the mask oculars easy enough on my eyes that I can do ''something'' at least. A double shift after a day and a half of sleeping, I can handle no problem. Thanks, boss."

"I'll leave you to that rest, then," Yuki says.

"Are you going to be alright?" Roku asks, able to focus on the dark shape below the fuzzy glow that must be his halo, "knowing, I mean?"

"Yeah," Yuki says, "I think so. If I'm to die in battle, I'm doing it with a weapon in my hands. I said that the day my wings came out."

Roku blurts, "Oh, I'm just curious ... Your cocoon dream?"

"Something like that, yeah," Yuki says with a smile. He clears his throat and puts on a bit of a Russian accent, "Samurai thinks it was the Siege of Moskba against the Germans two hundred fifteen years before Deployment," then he chuckles, "I think it was against the French three hundred forty-four years before Deployment." He sighs, back to his normal accent, "I hope we have a chance to settle that argument. Good night, Roku."

--------

She looks about grimly to her companions. The controls around her look quaint, but she knows them well. She doesn't understand any of the markings, only functions she does not know the words for. She reaches for them with a huge hand, pale and callused, wearing a leather glove. This one sets the vehicle to remain hovering where it is. She goes from the control cabin into the back of the vehicle, flooded with crimson red light. She looks left at the console where a relatively skinny blonde young man winks at her.

From the corner of his console, tacked into the vehicle's cabin, hangs a large ornately carved cube with five glowing green lights, dangling about as the vehicle shifts with the movements of its five occupants. This object looks somehow familiar, but somehow not so.

Roku turns to the back ramp, nods at a young lady with long blonde hair and piercing green eyes, who seems in a panic to hide her mane in her armor suit. She turns to the other man, who is bigger and with short hair. They stare at each other for a few seconds, and the both start suddenly chuckling.

The blonde lady, equal boss with the man, turns to her and speaks. Roku does not hear the lady's voice, but understanding forms in her thoughts: They are destroying a missile in the concrete pit below them. Roku wonders how, but her body in the dream nods, and cocks a weapon in her hands by a foregrip pump. The warheads on top of the missile are the priority, and she is to destroy four of twelve on it, without blowing up the launching stage below it.

Roku is stunned at the pace of the dream, as she, in her far larger body, descends into the underground silo on a rope and does her job. When she returns to the controls of her vehicle, the clock has advanced only three minutes. Roku wonders how she knows that if she can't read it. The third of her three companions helped her up the ramp. This small, quick man, whom she dwarfs, whom she envies the speed of. She remembers that on ladders and ropes, she can outclimb him like he's standing still, but that is her only advantage. For a moment, he looks familiar to Roku. She has seen him before ... in real life.

As Roku grips the flying vehicle's wheel, she hears a tapping on the window and suddenly, of her own will for the first time, turns her head to the right.

And sees nothing. She groans, "Dang, I'm up."

She hears a tapping on the window, just as in the dream. The window behind the drapes. Seventeen taps. She daren't pull back the drapes and let in the afternoon sun, but she listens. Seventeen taps.

"Who is it?" she asks.

Seventeen taps.

"Juunana?," she wonders to herself.

Two taps.

She finds her phone on the nightstand, and dials out. "Uh ... Konbonwa, is this the Western University Hospital? ... The crows in Tori's aviary ... Escaped? ... Which two? Thank you."

She drops the phone on her bed, reaches up under the drapes, and opens the window. The two ravens spill into the darkened room.

"Juunanaban?" she asks, lowering her hand to the floor. The bird hops into her hands, and using the same foot language as before, asks her for a meal replacement ration.

"I've got some beef from this morning," she indicates the breakfast cart.

"We have too much flying to do in the upcoming battle," The bird stomps in her hands, "Calorie density, and two medicine vials with water, please."

"Ima, nanji?" she wonders mostly to herself, looking for the clock.

"4:12 in the afternoon," she feels the warm feathered creature in her hands, "Time for a couple scratches?" The bird shifts onto her left hand.

Carefully, she pets the head of a bird she is unable to see, feeling the soft black feathers in the dark.

"Thank you, Roku," he signs.

"Thank you, Juunana," Roku weeps with her voice.

She offers the crow a perch on the meal tray, which he takes. Then she phones, "Hi, I'm Roku-chan. I'm a little hungry again, can I get a meal replacement ration and, if you can spare them, two empty pill vials with the lids. Oh, and knock when you get here, I still must hide my eyes from the bright light in the hallway."

The two birds hide when the attendant gets there. He's not a nurse, but a second watch Defender.

"Thank you," Roku says.

"My pleasure," he says, removing the breakfast leftovers, "and what would you like for dinner? Another MRR?," he shakes his head, "I got chicken stew on the go."

"That would be great, thanks," Roku replies.

Her fellow gunner looks slightly impish and says, "Sounds like you're up to something," then leaves before she can answer.

The crows practice popping the lids off and drinking from the pill containers, and sound very happy. They are in a mad rush to eat, and are soon scratching at the window to get back out. Roku obliges, and wonders. "Juuyonban, Juunanaban, will I ever see you again?" Then she chuckles, "Maybe we should call ourselves the ''numbered ones.''"

Next: [[Battle of Haibi Chapter 18half]]: The Least Gentle of Nights

Next full chapter: [[Battle of Haibi Chapter 19]]: Battlestations!

[http://haibaniki.rubychan.de/wiki/Battle_of_Haibi Back to Battle of Haibi main directory]

FHD Remix Chapter 6

2018-07-11T20:40:55Z

Fhd remix: /* Chapter 6: Life in the Moat */ Door details fixed (confusing inner and outer = massive blush)

[http://haibaniki.rubychan.de/wiki/FHD_Remix Back to FHD Remix main directory]

Previous: [[FHD Remix Chapter 5]]: Glie's Only Defender

== Chapter 6: Life in the Moat ==

"Tatakai," the Communicator notes her arrival with surprise, "I can't believe you're still alive, let alone up and about. Nobody has survived touching the wall since Rakka 55 years ago. There have been five since, the most recent two winters ago. Surely you must know better, you describe the illness yourself as ''delta radiation.''"

Looking about to confirm that there are no Toga, she speaks, "It was a mistake, I'm sorry for troubling you," she answers, "It certainly won't happen again if I can do anything to prevent it."

The Communicator chuckles, "You say that as though you're responsible for all of Glie, not merely your own actions. Say, how is it going with you and the forester?"

"That's what I came to talk to you about," Tatakai sighs, "I thought you'd have found out by now. Three days ago, we agreed that I just wasn't cut out for the work, and last night, the Saviour revealed to me why I was brought here: the work I have ''always'' been cut out for."

He sighs in disgust. She's discussed this with the Communicator before, and he's explained at length that such work is not an option for her.

"I am the defender of Glie," she says without cheer, "It is not an option. The Saviour has equipped me for the job, and showed me the need."

The Communicator answers, "There is no such job, I told you that before. The wall defends Glie, and the community watch looks after the people. As you know, a haibane is not allowed on the community watch, even as appropriate as you would otherwise be for such a job."

"You know a lot more than the haibane of Old Home," she says, "Shimoni told me that no one has ever touched the wall before. I had already known of Patricia, the one you must have been referring to as the most recent, from listening to conversations in the square, but I didn't say anything about her to Shimoni. Menmo told me that ''Rakka,'' your predecessor, had a job ''inside'' the wall before she became the Communicator. Whatever that job is, I will perform its duties as well."

The Communicator remarks, "Your ability to observe is surprising."

Tatakai grunts, "Well, I learned the hard way. That's obvious from some of my more recent dreams, with brushes just as close as last night."

"Rakka's first job is no longer available," the Communicator says in a grave tone.

"Well, dang, I guess that leaves me really in the lurch then. Will I have to return my Haibane Renmei log book and subsist on weeds and berries doing the job God has given me?"

The Communicator stands motionless. Behind his oddly familiar mask is any possible expression, Tatakai can't see through it to know.

"Follow me," he says suddenly. He leads her to the back of the temple walking far faster than he ever has before, opens a door made of steel or something like it. He seems as impatient to throw her off the trail as she is to follow it. Down some stairs, they're obviously underground. The room is warm, and slightly humid. Tatakai sees a line all the way around it, up on the stairs, up on the robes lining the walls. It is dirty, smelling slightly of mold. The Communicator seems surprised, but not alarmed.

"It's been flooded recently," Tatakai says, stooping to note what seem to be drainage holes in an irregular pattern along the base of the wall. She pulls a chunk of mud out of one of them with her finger, and wipes it out with a cloth she has on her for use around Old Home. It is now the only hole that is clean. As she expected, the hole disappears. She does not know upon what she had based her expectation, though.

The Communicator gives her a heavy, hooded robe with sewn on gloves. He instructs her never to take it off when outside the suit room away from the temple and that anything they find can't attack them while they are wearing them.

"Never have both suit room doors open at the same time, and always have a suit on when the outer door is open," she guesses correctly as they head up the stairs.

"That is correct," the Communicator says.

The Communicator leads her into a boat. She is silent as he pushes the boat down a canal, or "moat" as she has already begun calling it in her mind. It has a very slight curve to it.

"Soon, you will see why Rakka's job can no longer be accomplished," the Communicator says.

"I repaired the wall on the other side of the Western Woods using the Saviour's light he had put at my command," she says. On either side of the exotic corridor are bronze tags, corroded and dirty, getting more corroded and more dirty by the yard. Included along with the dirt are tiny glowing flakes of metal, stuck to the wall in wavy horizontal patterns. The walls on either side appear to rise forever into a starless abyss over their heads.

"You will need more than a story and a light show to prove that to me, Tatakai," the Communicator says in a skeptical tone.

Tatakai is looking about, keeping her bearings as the boat continues. She smiles as she sees it. Suddenly the corridor is darker, but the polished tags are so bright in the light of the lantern that they appear almost golden, the light leaves are spread about in neat, flower like blooms almost at random, and there isn't a crack to be seen on either side.

"Now you have it," Tatakai says in a snicker, trying not to laugh.

The Communicator, startled and quite alarmed is looking about. "My ''God,''" he gasps, falling to his knees.

Tatakai kneels with him, "Were you afraid of how I might take the news that Glie was about to fall? That this section had collapsed? I know where we are, inside the wall not far from where I touched it. What you were expecting to show me: Every few minutes there would be a crunching bang, the heaving ground kicking up the water, right up over the catwalk, we'd be arriving at an impassible pile of debris that we would be inside right now if it still existed." Tatakai is speaking in a humble and sincere tone, totally unoffended by his previous scepticism, "Do you believe me now?"

Tatakai closes her eyes, remaining on her knees. "Saviour," she says, "you say they haven't been used in a very long time, and he does not know that they exist. He can't teach me how to use them then, can he? Please, Father, in the name of your Son, the Saviour, you ''must'' show me how they work." She kneels silently for another minute.

The Communicator, now the warrior's student, watches silently as Tatakai struggles to her feet, uses the pole to rotate the boat so that the gates in the railing face the catwalk on either side. She ties the boat to one of the pilings in the outer catwalk. Then she reaches over the edge of the boat, under the rail and pulls up a T-shaped handle. The Communicator is stunned, thinking they were just decorations around the outside of the boat's hull.

BANG! The Communicator jumps, startled, watching the boat bob in the water.

"That was the drop keel," Tatakai explains, then reaches down near the middle of the boat and lifts up a previously unknown hatch on a hinge. Under it is a pattern of nested circles. Once she has rested it in the open position, she holds her hand out to the Communicator, "The puller, please."

The Communicator hands her the tool, a long pole with a small hook and an eye midway along its length apparently given as a more secure grip. She inserts it in the hole in the middle of the nested circles and lifts it. The mast, a 30cm diameter the interior of which is patterned with triangular voids except for a pattern of rungs, rises from the middle of the boat as Tatakai lifts it, rungs set into the middle. Using the puller on the rung, it rises easily. Into each rung is formed a lug which fits the puller's eye perfectly. The Communicator watches in silence as she raises the telescoping mast, section at a time. Ten sections, six metres each; she struggles as the mast grows taller and heavier, the Communicator stunned that the boat is so stable. For the final section, each ratchety rotation of the puller against a groove in the boat's deck raises the mast just two centimetres, it takes three hundred pumps to raise the last section.

She stands and rests for a few minutes, "I'm going to need some thermal underwear for this job," she huffs. "It will be faster to climb than descend," she explains as she taps a vertical line beside the rungs three times, a railing falls out, supports two every metre. "You won't be able to because the carabiner pocket can't be opened without real wings." Underneath the robe, her wings cause the back to bulge. She reaches over her right shoulder and grabs the glowing loop that protrudes above the Toganese lettering. She clips the glowing carabiner, apparently forged of the same material as her halo, onto the railing and starts climbing up the mast, taking the lantern with her. The carabiner hangs on the bottom of the rail with nothing attached to it. As she climbs, it starts following her, silently rising. Each of the railing supports opens upward from the mast as her carabiner forces it to, then returns to its position with a clack after it passes. A large crack becomes visible in the outer wall on her left as she ascends. "Normally, I need to see damage to repair it," she explains.

She holds out her left hand and her halo and the carabiner brightens. A slight rumble as the wall shrinks away, and once the crack is closed, from the bottom up the bright light of the Saviour seals it, Tatakai's eyes following into the unseen heights. For the first time in his life, and for just a brief instant, the Communicator can see the narrow ceiling over a hundred metres above. The crack is gone as though it had never existed. Tatakai descends, slower than she climbed, as she needs to reach to her right and lift each railing support to allow her robe's carabiner to pass through. The Communicator realizes that the same magic works in the carabiner and the halo, and that the invisible harness binding the carabiner to her probably works only with haibane. Once she has arrived at the bottom and replaced the carabiner in the pocket of the robe, she hooks the puller into the opening between the boat and the mast, at a particular groove it is designed to fit into, and lowers the mast's biggest section with a gentle rubbing sound. She repeats this with each mast section in turn, leaving the puller red hot all the way up to the eye. There are two slots under the hatch near the hinge, one with a puller in it, and one without. She drops her hot puller into the empty slot and pulls out the cold one, handing it to the Communicator, who notes the slight difference in the Toganese engraved on the handle to identify it. He didn't even know it existed.

Tatakai closes the hatch, then walks over to the T-handle at the base of the railing next to the outer edge of the moat. She jams the toe of her boot against the toe board. Not quite right, so she kicks it again, recessing a small block built into it. She then takes the T-handle and pulls on it several times. It moves in much the same way as the starter cord of a lawnmower, but she's in no hurry to crank whatever it is that needs to be cranked. The drop keel, the Communicator feels. Each pull ends with a clunk. After twenty pulls of this handle, it no longer yields to Tatakai, and she crouches to tuck it back in the outside of the boat where she found it. The boat is in the same state that they boarded it in.

"The- ... I don't know," Tatakai sighs as though dredging for a memory her mind won't yield, "''personality'' of this place seems somehow familiar, like I met the people who built this wall in my previous life ... perhaps even discussed it with them. What else have we forgotten?" She looks up into the blackness above in wonder and respect.

The Communicator unwittingly quotes the third law of Arthur C. Clarke, "Sufficiently advanced technology cannot be distinguished from magic, Tatakai. Do you believe that?"

"Oh," she sighs, "Not all of this is technology, but the miracle working power of the Saviour and his Father." Humbly, she squeaks as though a hamster might if he suddenly realized his exercise wheel made the Earth rotate on its axis, "I don't know where the technology ends ... and the miracles begin."

They make their way back to the suit room and the Communicator opens the door. They enter and then they close it. The Communicator explains, "We must now stay in this room for one hour before we may take off our robes, and return to the temple." The Communicator wonders if Tatakai was paying any attention, "Are you hearing this? Occasionally, a light leaf bloom will happen in the room while you are waiting. Don't be alarmed, it is normal for it to happen every now and then, especially in the late fall. We will probably have one this time because I've had one every time this year. Are you paying attention?"

Tatakai was paying attention to something else. She holds a finger to her mouth and slowly walks towards the wall next to her, then along it. Tap tap ... tap tap. Something invisible is padding around her, in the room with them.

"Tatakai?" the Communicator asks.

The invisible presence seems startled at the sound of her name and runs all the way past the Communicator, brushing against his robe and disturbing it.

"It cannot attack us as long as we wear the robes," he explains.

"They don't usually make their presence felt like that, do they? Does anyone know what they look like?" she asks.

The Communicator shakes his head, "No."

"I do," Tatakai says, "and it knows who I am. Communicator, meet Wraith. Wraith, Communicator."

They can hear the soft padding foot step retreat all the way into the corner as Tatakai raises her hand. "Good bye, Wraith," she says calmly.

With the flash from her hand, the wraith appears, crying in agony, crushed against the inner door. It is the same type of creature she had met on Mars in her previous life. In moments its dead body burns away, leaving a scattering of light leaves.

"The wall has some way of converting the delta vector into this stuff," she realizes. Tatakai gathers up and weighs the light leaves, satisfied that all the delta vector has been converted. To be safe, she takes a patch out of her pocket and peels off the top, sets it on the floor. The circle in the middle is green. After three minutes of staring at it without any change, she says, "It's safe now." and starts taking off her robe.

"We still have another forty-five minutes," the Communicator says in alarm.

Tatakai tightens up her robe again, then reaches for the outer door and opens it just a crack, and just for a moment, then closes it again.

"Great, that restarts the-" the Communicator stops cold. The patch Tatakai had put on the floor has turned black.

"Delta radiation comes from delta vector," she explains flatly, "The wall has been designed specifically to keep the stuff out of Glie. Delta vector sinks, which is why this suit room is at the bottom of the stairs. Its progress into Glie would be quite slow if both doors were left open. The wall can remove the vector, both from Glie's interior and from this room."

She puts another patch on the floor. It stays green for the full three minutes. She picks it up and holds it against the outer door. It takes a few seconds to turn black.

"Hmm, I should get a high dose sampling on the door" she says. She takes another patch, yellow once she peels the leaf from it, stoops and presses it against the bottom of the door. It takes forty seconds to turn black. "That's bad," she says, "The Saviour must have helped me survive my dose from last night. He must have shielded me from getting an untreatable dose. I should be dead."

After that confession, the Communicator thinks it is rather odd that she would take off her robe and start mopping the floor during the one hour wait. "I'll be fine as long as I don't touch the door." The stone room is pretty much spotless by the time the hour is up, except for the inside door and the floor within about half a metre of it. Tatakai is swabbing out the liquid ports near the floor when the Communicator declares that the hour is up and opens the inner door. "You could have a job cleaning," he says.

"Because there are so few places haibane can work," she answers, "All those jobs are taken."

So Tatakai has found her job in Glie. In addition to that, she polishes the Toga tags and gathers the "hikarinium" light leaves, made of the metal that the haibane halos are forged from.

Next: [[FHD Remix Chapter 7]]: The Annual Attack

[http://haibaniki.rubychan.de/wiki/FHD_Remix Back to FHD Remix main directory]

Kana

2018-05-28T03:52:04Z

Fhd remix: stubby Ophelia theory

{{Stub}}
[[Image:Kana_with_machinery.jpg|thumb|right|Kana in the Old Home clock tower.]]
{| border="1"
|+ align="top" style="caption-side: top" | '''Vital statistics'''
|-
|Kanji || 河魚
|-
|Meaning || River fish
|-
|Cocoon dream || Drifting in water
|-
|Haibane age || 4
|-
|Biological age || ~14
|-
|True name || ?
|-
|Meaning || ?
|}

Kana is a mechanically inclined tomboy. She works at the clock tower in the town's center (and the shop at its base). She is obsessed with repairing the clock in [[Old Home]]'s clock tower. What she achieves in this is having the bell ring constantly, which does come useful when the [[Old Home haibane]] go searching for [[Kuu]] in {{ep|6}}.

== Profiling ==
Kana is uneasy in admitting her emotions. She also has a grudge towards crows for their constant scavenging of the [[Old Home Trash Incinerator]].

== Precursor Theories ==

Editor FHD_Remix has a stubborn feeling that Kana may have been inspired by ''Hamlet'' character Ophelia but is not familiar enough with the character to treat the theory properly.

[[Category:Original Characters]]

== Threads ==
* {{Topic|1430|River Girl: A Short Story by Majic}}
* {{Topic|1142|Kana's Victory Salute}}
* {{Topic|1281|What Would You Expect To Find In Kana's Room?}}

Kuu

2018-05-28T03:45:46Z

Fhd remix: CB Lansing precursor theory

{{Wantspics}}

{| border="1"
|+ align="top" style="caption-side: top" | '''Vital statistics'''
|-
|Kanji || 空
|-
|Meaning || Air
|-
|Cocoon dream || Floating in the sky
|-
|Haibane age || 2
|-
|Biological age || ~12
|-
|True name || 空宇
|-
|Meaning || "Sky Castle"
|}

Kuu is the youngest of the Old Home haibane before the arrival of Rakka, not counting the [[Young Feathers]]. She is free-spirited, cheerful but also quite inquisitive as indicated by certain clues in her room (see ''Threads''). She works at a restaurant.
Kuu has something of an affinity for cats, being shown playing with them several times. Her character seems to resemble that of ''Niea'' (with whom she shares this affinity) from [[NieA_7]], a previous project that ABe was also involved in, though unlike her alien counterpart, Kuu actually has manners.
Initially thought to have gone out to the town, she takes her [[Day of Flight]] in {{ep|6}}. This deeply hurts [[Rakka]], with whom Kuu developed a friendship cut short by her departure.

== Profiling ==
To be added later.

== Case study ==
In addition to her cat affinity, Kuu seems to have had a special relation with flight and aeroplanes (of which are, unsurprisingly, none in Guri). She is seen several times to be running off with her arms stretched out, imitating an airplane. She also tells Rakka that even though their wings are quite unusable, she is certain that they will be able to fly someday. This foreshadows her impending Flight. (Also note that Kuu is wearing a cap by the time she tells this, possibly to hide the halo's flickering.)
If Kuu indeed had a trial during her time in Guri, it was that of overcoming her childishly competitive and attention-seeking behaviour. This ironically led to her early passing over the Wall.

== Precursor theories ==

Flight attendant Clarabelle "CB" Lansing, while working for Aloha Airlines, was ejected from Aloha Flight 243 by being caught in the incipient failure of the aircraft fuselage 24000 feet above the Hawaiian islands. It is a near certainty that she lost consciousness before reaching the surface, and that the impact event with the fuselage would probably have preempted the sense of falling, which is what distinguishes Kuu's cocoon dream from Rakka's. While there are other airliner ejections such as these, Lansing was a flight attendant for 37 years, explaining Kuu's apparent affinity for aircraft, and far from retirement, explaining Kuu's need to "fill her cup" according to {{ep|5}} {{timecode|09|43}}.

[[Category:Original Characters]]

== Threads ==
* {{Topic|211|Kuu}}
* {{Topic|1577|Concerning The Little Frog Statues}}
* {{Topic|1697|Rome}}
* {{Topic|1071|Kuu's Room: White Bell Nuts?}}
* {{Topic|1009|Kuu's Statue: Who Is It?}}

Kuu

2018-05-24T01:45:49Z

Fhd remix: /* Case study */ Incidentally, "IUS" stands for "Inertial Upper Stage"

{{Stub}}

{| border="1"
|+ align="top" style="caption-side: top" | '''Vital statistics'''
|-
|Kanji || 空
|-
|Meaning || Air
|-
|Cocoon dream || Floating in the sky
|-
|Haibane age || 2
|-
|Biological age || ~12
|-
|True name || 空宇
|-
|Meaning || "Sky Castle"
|}

Kuu is the youngest of the Old Home haibane before the arrival of Rakka, not counting the [[Young Feathers]]. She is free-spirited, cheerful but also quite inquisitive as indicated by certain clues in her room (see ''Threads''). She works at a restaurant.
Kuu has something of an affinity for cats, being shown playing with them several times. Her character seems to resemble that of ''Niea'' (with whom she shares this affinity) from [[NieA_7]], a previous project that ABe was also involved in, though unlike her alien counterpart, Kuu actually has manners.
Initially thought to have gone out to the town, she takes her [[Day of Flight]] in {{ep|6}}. This deeply hurts [[Rakka]], with whom Kuu developed a friendship cut short by her departure.

== Profiling ==
To be added later.

== Case study ==
In addition to her cat affinity, Kuu seems to have had a special relation with flight and aeroplanes (of which are, unsurprisingly, none in Guri). She is seen several times to be running off with her arms stretched out, imitating an airplane. She also tells Rakka that even though their wings are quite unusable, she is certain that they will be able to fly someday. This foreshadows her impending Flight. (Also note that Kuu is wearing a cap by the time she tells this, possibly to hide the halo's flickering.)
If Kuu indeed had a trial during her time in Guri, it was that of overcoming her childishly competitive and attention-seeking behaviour. This ironically led to her early passing over the Wall.

[[Category:Original Characters]]

== Threads ==
* {{Topic|211|Kuu}}
* {{Topic|1577|Concerning The Little Frog Statues}}
* {{Topic|1697|Rome}}
* {{Topic|1071|Kuu's Room: White Bell Nuts?}}
* {{Topic|1009|Kuu's Statue: Who Is It?}}

Renmei

2018-05-24T01:42:17Z

Fhd remix: /* FHD Remix (minor spoilers) */ Hit wrong button instead of preview.

{{Stub}}

The Haibane Renmei (灰羽連盟 - ''Ashen Feathers Alliance'', officially translated as ''Charcoal Feather Federation'') is an organization in [[Guri]] dedicated to helping haibane in their daily lives and in achieving their [[Day of Flight]]. Their temple is situated in the western cliffs, not far from a waterfall. A graveyard is mentioned to be nearby.

== Constitution, origin and operation ==
Known members include [[Washi]] (the Communicator), the gate keeper and members of the community watch. The [[Tooga]] also seem to be closely related.
With the exception of the gate keeper, it appears that the members are all former haibane who failed to overcome their trials. They dress in dark coloured robes and wear wooden masks, fake wings with indicator bells, a head scarf, and an amulet. They mostly tend the Temple and its surroundings. Their unspoken leader is most probably Washi.

=== The Temple ===
The temple's building itself is cylinder-shaped, surrounding a circular garden populated by lush greenery. An underground passageway opening from the temple leads to the inside of the Wall.

=== The Wall ===
Renmei members regularly travel inside the wall by the boat and collect ''kouhaku'' (light leaves) that manifest on departed haibane's name tags. These are then used as the base material in the production of halos.
Also see the relevant pages on the [[Wall]] and [[halos|Halo Symbolism]].

=== Sign language ===
[[Sekai no Hajimari]] has a [http://cff.ssw.net/misc/langauge.htm page] explaining the signs used by the Renmei and the Tooga and visible on the name tags inside the [[Wall]].

== Threads ==
* {{Topic|1782|On the title}}
* {{Topic|845|The Temple}}
* [[OHBB]] also has its [http://cff.ssw.net/forum/viewforum.php?f=6 Renmei] section.

== FHD Remix (minor spoilers) ==

When Haibi was founded, the first haibane emerged from the 4512 featherwings (who had full-sized flying wings) in crippled form. These formed the core of Haibi's government and defenses, called the Haibane Renmei.(The first Day of Flight was in Year 5, and the first cocoons appeared in Year 34; the last of the original featherwing haibane Flew in Year 76.) This government had no single leader, meeting for a maximum of two hours each Monday with the agenda and order strictly moderated by a computer. During the [[Battle of Haibi]] at the end of Year 76, this incarnation of the Ashfeather Council was destroyed, along with nearly the entire original city. The Saviour's Light rebuilt only the wall, protecting the survivors. The tetchy meeting computer remains operational, buried in the Central Tower and forgotten. The Haibane Renmei was reestablished in its current form in Year 99. ''Haibane Renmei's'' events began in the summer of Year 1206.

The Communicator is almost always a haibane who has suffered a halo failure and lost his wings and voice, it being damaged so that he always sounds like an old man. Even if she's a woman. (It is likely that the occasional Communicator is unable to speak at all.) While it is often the case that the Communicator is a haibane who has failed to escape his circle of sin, it may happen more often that a haibane volunteers for the role at the Saviour's request. A Communicator will often Fly when replaced, and in these cases, his Day of Flight is assumed by the public to be that of his replacement. (This was not the case with the first Communicator, Shiden (紫電 - Purple Flash) in Year 98.)

Renmei

2018-05-24T00:46:03Z

Fhd remix:

{{Stub}}

The Haibane Renmei (灰羽連盟 - ''Ashen Feathers Alliance'', officially translated as ''Charcoal Feather Federation'') is an organization in [[Guri]] dedicated to helping haibane in their daily lives and in achieving their [[Day of Flight]]. Their temple is situated in the western cliffs, not far from a waterfall. A graveyard is mentioned to be nearby.

== Constitution, origin and operation ==
Known members include [[Washi]] (the Communicator), the gate keeper and members of the community watch. The [[Tooga]] also seem to be closely related.
With the exception of the gate keeper, it appears that the members are all former haibane who failed to overcome their trials. They dress in dark coloured robes and wear wooden masks, fake wings with indicator bells, a head scarf, and an amulet. They mostly tend the Temple and its surroundings. Their unspoken leader is most probably Washi.

=== The Temple ===
The temple's building itself is cylinder-shaped, surrounding a circular garden populated by lush greenery. An underground passageway opening from the temple leads to the inside of the Wall.

=== The Wall ===
Renmei members regularly travel inside the wall by the boat and collect ''kouhaku'' (light leaves) that manifest on departed haibane's name tags. These are then used as the base material in the production of halos.
Also see the relevant pages on the [[Wall]] and [[halos|Halo Symbolism]].

=== Sign language ===
[[Sekai no Hajimari]] has a [http://cff.ssw.net/misc/langauge.htm page] explaining the signs used by the Renmei and the Tooga and visible on the name tags inside the [[Wall]].

== Threads ==
* {{Topic|1782|On the title}}
* {{Topic|845|The Temple}}
* [[OHBB]] also has its [http://cff.ssw.net/forum/viewforum.php?f=6 Renmei] section.

== FHD Remix (minor spoilers) ==

When Haibi was founded, the first haibane emerged from the 4512 featherwings (who had full-sized flying wings) in crippled form. These formed the core of Haibi's government and defenses, called the Haibane Renmei. This government had no single leader, meeting for a maximum of two hours each Monday with the agenda and order strictly moderated by a computer. During the [[Battle of Haibi]] at the end of Year 76, this incarnation of the Ashfeather Council was destroyed, along with nearly the entire original city. The Saviour's Light rebuilt only the wall, protecting the survivors. The tetchy meeting computer remains operational, buried in the Central Tower and forgotten. The Haibane Renmei was reestablished in its current form in Year 99. ''Haibane Renmei's'' events began in the summer of Year 1206.

The Communicator is almost always a haibane who has suffered a halo failure and lost his wings and voice, it being damaged so that he always sounds like an old man. Even if she's a woman. While it is often the case that the Communicator is a haibane who has failed to escape his circle of sin, it may happen more often that a haibane volunteers for the role at the Saviour's request. A Communicator will often Fly when replaced, and in these cases, his Day of Flight is assumed by the public to be that of his replacement. (This was not the case with the first Communicator, Shiden (紫電 - Purple Flash) in Year 98.

Reki

2018-05-24T00:16:23Z

Fhd remix: /* Case study */

{{Stub}}
{{Wantspics}}

{| border="1"
|+'''Vital statistics'''
|Kanji || 礫
|-
|Meaning || small stone (from 瓦礫 - pebbles)
|-
|Cocoon dream || Walking on a stone-laden path at night
|-
|Haibane age || 7
|-
|Biological age || 20?
|-
|True name || 轢
|-
|Meaning || (death by) being run over
|}

Reki is the unspoken leader of [[Old Home]].

Together with Nemu they run the Southern Guri Mafia, employing Young Feathers for unpaid day-long sweatshop work. Kana, one of their henchmen, is also know as the ''Great Carrot Monster''.

Actually, no. The previous paragraph was a half-baked attempt at humour.

For others, Reki is both a mother and father figure, distanced yet concerned. She is haunted by her past and recurring nightmares. Incompletely remembering her cocoon dream, she paints (pictures, not walls) in a hope of recovering it.

== Profiling ==

=== Before the series' events ===
Reki hatched 7 years before the beginning of the story, in a storage shack at [[Old Home]], during winter. Probably due to this was the apparent lack of noticing her cocoon by Old Home's inhabitants at that time. She was found by [[Nemu]], frost-bitten andf lying uncosciously on the floor, with her wings already grown. The wings were stained black.

Noticing this evoked fear (and possibly, disgust) in [[Nemu]], who, believing this to be a sign of impurity (see [[Sin-Bound]]), initially avoided her. [[Kuramori]], however, showed acceptance and trust towards her, going as far as entering the depths of the [[Western Woods]] to gather medicinal herbs for making a dye to cover Reki's stained wings, as told to her by [[Washi]]. However, these trips (and the apparent closeness of the [[Wall]] to the Woods) posed a threat to her very delicate health. In the {{ep|10}} flashback she is shown to have collapsed in exhaustion while returning from the Woods.[[Reki#Notes|[1]]].

This furthered Nemu's hatred. In addition to Reki being apparently responsible for endangering Kuramori, it seems that Nemu was jealous of having to "share" her "personal privileges" to the benefits from Kuramori's labours with a seemingly careless outsider. '''(someone, please, rewrite this sentence)'''

Seeing Reki's apparent concerns (in the flashback she returned food from the town to cook for Kuramori, who was still recovering) relieved Nemu and began to break up her coldness towards Reki. She is assigned the job of looking after newly arrived haibane. (Perhaps this foreshadows Kuramori's impending Flight?)

Kuramori promised Reki to be always by her side, however, she was unaware just how seriously Reki took those words. Because of her traumatic birth as a haibane (echoing the abandonment that most probably lead to her death as a human) she was in desperate need for caring and love. Kuramori's taking of the [[Day of Flight|Flight]] devastated Reki. Nemu's bringing up the legend of the Day of Flight from her research at the library did not help the case either.

In grief, Reki ran away from Old Home. She was found loitering in Guri during a storm by [[Hyohko]] who, seeing her helplessness, brought her to the [[Abandoned Factory]], where he also belonged. He found out about Reki's black wings and offered to paint them so she wouldn't have to use the dye. (This is stated explicitly in the doujinshi's [[The Doujinshi|Extra Chapter]]. Also note the [[Bell Nuts#Colours and Messages|colour]] of the paint he uses.)

Reki told him about Kuramori's leaving. Hyohko, seeing her despair, decided to climb over the wall with Reki so she could have been reunited with Kuramori. He drove a wedge into the wall for the rope but the ladder he was standing on collapsed in the process, leaving Hyohko severely (if not critically) injured. Reki is shown to be in shock and inactivity thereafter. What happened after this is not shown.

Hyohko managed to survive. Reki was captured by the community watch and held captive in a jail, presumably in the Temple, for an unmentioned amount of time. While there, she vowed not to commit any more mistakes and act as a [[Good Haibane|good haibane]] should. This is only shown in the Extra Chapter but is likely canon.

Years pass and unmentioned events happen. One day, while moving her belongings from the Old Home guest room, she notices a peculiar noise while passing near a room. Opening the door she sees a full-grown haibane [[cocoon]] inside.

=== In the series ===
This section is a placeholder.

== Case study ==
This is a placeholder. See the subsection below. [[File:HRTrain.jpg|200px|thumb|right|First view of the rail line in {{ep|13}}]]

=== Cocoon dream ===
Reki's dream is the other one, besides that of Rakka that the viewer actually gets to see.

From what little she mentions about the circumstances before she was run over (in her dream) by the [[Ectoplasmic train|train]], it is clear that she was fleeing, presumably victimized by child abuse. It can be speculated that no one would have looked after her, therefore, even if she actually called for help, no one would have been there to hear that. (''"What if I called out for help from the bottom of my heart and nobody answered?"'' --Reki, {{ep|13}})

It is quite ambiguous whether her case was actually suicide, and if so, if it was intended to be such from the beginning. One could argue that a conscious choice of suicide with full realization of the consequences arising cannot be made at such a young age (12 or so). Suicide as a means to end further suffering (from child abuse or uncaring, perhaps) can, however, be justified as a possibility.

She mentions that, moments before her death, she simply resorted to inactivity, not to suffer any more, freezing into motionlessness, akin to a stone. This may suggest that she stumbled upon the tracks and when a train was approaching, seeing no meaning in stepping aside, she simply waited there for her doom.

'''Slight speculation follows.'''

In a Freudian context, this is the desire to return to the state of non-being, the overflowing of ''destrudo'' or the death drive, usually manifesting in situations which fall beyond the capabilities of one's coping mechanisms, rendering any further resistance or intervention futile. It is also linked with the desire to return to infancy, which is probably quite egoless. But again, this is not ''Evangelion'', so the case might be different.

'''Rampant speculation follows.'''

Reki's precursor lived in the southern United States and committed suicide on 1892 November 4, being hit by a westbound train during a lunar eclipse. Her death (along with, possibly, one or more brakemen on the train) was one of several accidents leading to the [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Railroad_Safety_Appliance_Act Railroad Safety Act of 1893 March 2.] (Fanon: She may have been black. According to [[Battle of Haibi Chapter 27]], haibane have the same eyes as their precursors, but other physical details can vary wildly. While almost 33 years after the Emancipation Proclamation, black citizens in the United States were still persecuted at that time.)

== Threads ==
* ...
* ...
* ...
== Notes ==
# It is possible that her apparent ''weakness'' was, in fact, epilepsy, as the symptoms shown can correlate to that. See {{Topic|###|this topic}} for more information.

[[Category:Original Characters]]

File:HRTrain.jpg

2018-05-23T23:53:03Z

Fhd remix: Capped from 16:19 of Episode 13 years before by the uploader; the credits watermark was added at that time.

Capped from 16:19 of Episode 13 years before by the uploader; the credits watermark was added at that time.

Reki

2018-05-23T23:45:00Z

Fhd remix: /* Case study */

{{Stub}}
{{Wantspics}}

{| border="1"
|+'''Vital statistics'''
|Kanji || 礫
|-
|Meaning || small stone (from 瓦礫 - pebbles)
|-
|Cocoon dream || Walking on a stone-laden path at night
|-
|Haibane age || 7
|-
|Biological age || 20?
|-
|True name || 轢
|-
|Meaning || (death by) being run over
|}

Reki is the unspoken leader of [[Old Home]].

Together with Nemu they run the Southern Guri Mafia, employing Young Feathers for unpaid day-long sweatshop work. Kana, one of their henchmen, is also know as the ''Great Carrot Monster''.

Actually, no. The previous paragraph was a half-baked attempt at humour.

For others, Reki is both a mother and father figure, distanced yet concerned. She is haunted by her past and recurring nightmares. Incompletely remembering her cocoon dream, she paints (pictures, not walls) in a hope of recovering it.

== Profiling ==

=== Before the series' events ===
Reki hatched 7 years before the beginning of the story, in a storage shack at [[Old Home]], during winter. Probably due to this was the apparent lack of noticing her cocoon by Old Home's inhabitants at that time. She was found by [[Nemu]], frost-bitten andf lying uncosciously on the floor, with her wings already grown. The wings were stained black.

Noticing this evoked fear (and possibly, disgust) in [[Nemu]], who, believing this to be a sign of impurity (see [[Sin-Bound]]), initially avoided her. [[Kuramori]], however, showed acceptance and trust towards her, going as far as entering the depths of the [[Western Woods]] to gather medicinal herbs for making a dye to cover Reki's stained wings, as told to her by [[Washi]]. However, these trips (and the apparent closeness of the [[Wall]] to the Woods) posed a threat to her very delicate health. In the {{ep|10}} flashback she is shown to have collapsed in exhaustion while returning from the Woods.[[Reki#Notes|[1]]].

This furthered Nemu's hatred. In addition to Reki being apparently responsible for endangering Kuramori, it seems that Nemu was jealous of having to "share" her "personal privileges" to the benefits from Kuramori's labours with a seemingly careless outsider. '''(someone, please, rewrite this sentence)'''

Seeing Reki's apparent concerns (in the flashback she returned food from the town to cook for Kuramori, who was still recovering) relieved Nemu and began to break up her coldness towards Reki. She is assigned the job of looking after newly arrived haibane. (Perhaps this foreshadows Kuramori's impending Flight?)

Kuramori promised Reki to be always by her side, however, she was unaware just how seriously Reki took those words. Because of her traumatic birth as a haibane (echoing the abandonment that most probably lead to her death as a human) she was in desperate need for caring and love. Kuramori's taking of the [[Day of Flight|Flight]] devastated Reki. Nemu's bringing up the legend of the Day of Flight from her research at the library did not help the case either.

In grief, Reki ran away from Old Home. She was found loitering in Guri during a storm by [[Hyohko]] who, seeing her helplessness, brought her to the [[Abandoned Factory]], where he also belonged. He found out about Reki's black wings and offered to paint them so she wouldn't have to use the dye. (This is stated explicitly in the doujinshi's [[The Doujinshi|Extra Chapter]]. Also note the [[Bell Nuts#Colours and Messages|colour]] of the paint he uses.)

Reki told him about Kuramori's leaving. Hyohko, seeing her despair, decided to climb over the wall with Reki so she could have been reunited with Kuramori. He drove a wedge into the wall for the rope but the ladder he was standing on collapsed in the process, leaving Hyohko severely (if not critically) injured. Reki is shown to be in shock and inactivity thereafter. What happened after this is not shown.

Hyohko managed to survive. Reki was captured by the community watch and held captive in a jail, presumably in the Temple, for an unmentioned amount of time. While there, she vowed not to commit any more mistakes and act as a [[Good Haibane|good haibane]] should. This is only shown in the Extra Chapter but is likely canon.

Years pass and unmentioned events happen. One day, while moving her belongings from the Old Home guest room, she notices a peculiar noise while passing near a room. Opening the door she sees a full-grown haibane [[cocoon]] inside.

=== In the series ===
This section is a placeholder.

== Case study ==
This is a placeholder. See the subsection below.

=== Cocoon dream ===
Reki's dream is the other one, besides that of Rakka that the viewer actually gets to see.

From what little she mentions about the circumstances before she was run over (in her dream) by the [[Ectoplasmic train|train]], it is clear that she was fleeing, presumably victimized by child abuse. It can be speculated that no one would have looked after her, therefore, even if she actually called for help, no one would have been there to hear that. (''"What if I called out for help from the bottom of my heart and nobody answered?"'' --Reki, {{ep|13}})

It is quite ambiguous whether her case was actually suicide, and if so, if it was intended to be such from the beginning. One could argue that a conscious choice of suicide with full realization of the consequences arising cannot be made at such a young age (12 or so). Suicide as a means to end further suffering (from child abuse or uncaring, perhaps) can, however, be justified as a possibility.

She mentions that, moments before her death, she simply resorted to inactivity, not to suffer any more, freezing into motionlessness, akin to a stone. This may suggest that she stumbled upon the tracks and when a train was approaching, seeing no meaning in stepping aside, she simply waited there for her doom.

'''Slight speculation follows.'''

In a Freudian context, this is the desire to return to the state of non-being, the overflowing of ''destrudo'' or the death drive, usually manifesting in situations which fall beyond the capabilities of one's coping mechanisms, rendering any further resistance or intervention futile. It is also linked with the desire to return to infancy, which is probably quite egoless. But again, this is not ''Evangelion'', so the case might be different.

'''Rampant speculation follows.'''

Reki's precursor lived in the southern United States and committed suicide on 1892 November 4, being hit by a westbound train during a lunar eclipse. Her death (along with, possibly, one or more brakemen on the train) was one of several accidents leading to the [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Railroad_Safety_Appliance_Act Railroad Safety Act of 1893 March 2]

== Threads ==
* ...
* ...
* ...
== Notes ==
# It is possible that her apparent ''weakness'' was, in fact, epilepsy, as the symptoms shown can correlate to that. See {{Topic|###|this topic}} for more information.

[[Category:Original Characters]]

Animation errors

2018-05-23T22:55:53Z

Fhd remix: /* Shrinking Washi */

We've spotted some goofs in the [[animation]] of the [[The Anime|anime]].

== [[Kana]] without [[halo]] ==
[[Image:kana_without_halo.jpg|thumb|right|Kana's halo disappears in the [[Old Home#Clock Tower|Old Home Clock Tower]] in {{ep|4}}.]]

This is [[Kana]] in her own [[Old Home#Clock Tower|Clock Tower]], looking down on [[Rakka]] in {{ep|4}} {{timecode|07|57}}. Here her [[halo]] disappeared, most likely because the animators forgot to draw it.

It was {{Post|5683|spotted}} by [[User:yatpay|yatpay]] in the {{Topic|476|HR Bloopers thread}}.

{{clear}}

== Four-eyed [[Fangirl]] ==

[[Image:four-eyed_fangirl.jpg|thumb|right|The Alien Fangirl in the [[thrift shop]] in {{ep|8}}.]]

[[Rakka]] is bothered by the [[fangirl]] in the [[thrift shop]] in {{ep|8}}. When Rakka runs away, the fangirl steps back, and her eyes double {{timecode|11|24}}. This can only be seen by watching the scene in slow motion.

[[User:DHC, Inc.|DHC, Inc.]] spotted it in this {{Topic|821|Thread}} in Sep 2004. A very funny discussion followed.

[[User:Logozo|Logozo]] {{Post|12380|explains}}:

<blockquote>
Notice that few frame before, the Haibane Fangirl blinks, but her face doesn't change. It means that her eyes were on separate drawings (so that the whole body doesn't have to be redrawn every time). But few frames later, she backs off as Rakka runs away from her. As Fangirl reacts, her whole body is redrawn in a different pose, including her eyes. Whoever composited the scene, forgot to "turn off" the column where her "floating" eyes were, and forgot to "preview" the scene before exporting it to the final editing...
</blockquote>

{{clear}}

== Shrinking Washi ==

[[Image:Kuramori_Young_Reki_Washi.jpg|thumb|right|Kuramori next to Washi.]]

[[User:murphy|murphy]] attempted to measure the heights of the Haibane in the show, but after some {{Topic|1857|discussion}} it seems that the drawing is not always exact. For example, in {{ep|10}} [[Washi]] is the same size as [[Kuramori]], but in {{ep|3}} he seems to be much taller than [[Rakka]] and [[Hikari]]. (In the world of ''FHD Remix'', they are different individuals and their similarity in voice and appearance is plausible.)

{{clear}}

== Changing studio door ==

[[Image:Studio_door.jpg|thumb|right|[[Rakka]] opens the door to Reki's studio.]]

The door to [[Reki's studio]] looks different throughout the show. At least 2 different designs were spotted. It even changes within the same scene. See the {{Topic|38347|thread}}.

In addition to the doorknobs constantly changing, the studio door's direction of opening changes when Rakka enters the room for the last time, to save Reki.
This was spotted by [[User:Belthazar|Belthazar]] in his {{Topic|207|"Thoughts and Questions" thread}} in Dec 2003.

{{clear}}

Battle of Haibi Chapter 13

2018-05-12T23:55:28Z

Fhd remix: /* Chapter 13: Air Strike */ "Kabocha is" error fixed, added 085 turret falling

[http://haibaniki.rubychan.de/wiki/Battle_of_Haibi Back to Battle of Haibi main directory]

Previous: [[Battle of Haibi Chapter 12]]: Precursors

== Chapter 13: Air Strike ==

Samurai puts his hand on Roku's shoulder as she looks at a kiosk in the Central Tower's first floor lobby, "SCD+76yr Dec 17 06:42:31"

"What are you up to?" Samurai asks.

"I'm getting used to this Arabic/Latin stuff," Roku reflects, "It looks so familiar, yet so alien. It's agonizing," she sighs.

"What is?" Samurai asks.

"The life I've left behind, I somehow know," she says, "How can I explain this? ... It's like I've left my life behind, but I still have a job."

"A Final Warrior," Samurai says. "It's agonizing for me too. Somehow I know, that the war of my first life," he shakes his head. After a long moment, "It meant ''nothing.'' I lived a ''meaningless,'' empty life, having taken meaningless, ''empty'' oaths that I can't even remember the words to." He looks Roku in the eye, "And now ... the ''Saviour'' himself is holding me to those oaths ... to defend ''Haibi'' with my life."

Roku glances again at the clock. "Oh, my!" She switches it to Japanese, "For ''real!''" she gasps, grabs her bag and says, "I'm late for work!"

"Roku, wait!" Samurai orders, "Kabocha is not expecting you today. I want you on the gate for the Toga's arrival."

"What?" Roku gasps, "I've only been here six weeks, and you want to put me on such an important post."

Samurai puts a finger firmly on her shoulder, "Rok'hyaku Rokujuu Roku," he says with conviction, "''you'' are the ''best gunner'' in all of Haibi. By far."

"Really?" she asks.

"''Really,''" Samurai says, "Like I said before, I've been keeping you off the wall so that the enemy doesn't discover how good at this you really are. But today-" He pauses, "I have a ''really'' bad feeling about this. The enemy has been building forces up just outside where ... they think we can see them. We can see farther than they know, and have carefully hidden that fact from them. Our sensors penetrate the weather, as you know, but they ''don't'' know that, obviously or they wouldn't be doing it in sight of us."

"Uh," Roku says, "There's a trick I remember. There's a special layer in the atmosphere you can bounce radio waves-"

"''Sssh!''" Samurai says. He looks at her with a deep admiration, "That's how we know, Roku ... God, is there anything she ''doesn't'' know about warfare?"

"I could never forge that sword of yours," she says, "It's beautiful."

"Let's get you on the gate tower," Samurai says.

Roku settles into the turret. Subtle details in the scope reveal to her that it is not a simulation. There are no wraiths. She scans the path for mines, using half a dozen search modes that nobody else knows.

<Roku-san> Samurai says, <Remember, we have a covenant to protect the Toga from the enemy. If we betray it, it's the end of Haibi.>

"Acknowledged, Master," Roku says.

<Air strike,> she hears, but it is not Samurai.

Roku cups her hand over her ear and listens. Activating her radio with a flick of her wing under the battle robe, she whispers, "Zero-nine-five here, say again?"

<Negative, Roku-san,> the sector commander says, <No traffic for you.>

<Air strike,> it's a quiet whisper.

Without keying her radio, she whispers, "Christ Almighty."

Her heart skips a beat, and she realizes that she's pointed the wrong way. She reaches for her track control and pulls the lever to "Air Defense" The turret immediately starts moving back away from the wall's edge, as she pulls the plasma cannon above the horizon.

"Electronic support measures," she says on the radio, "Enemy emissions outside of Sector 2? I need codes for C, S, X, and Ku bands to display in my turret HUD, acknowledge?"

<Uh ... sure zero-nine-five, coming over your procedures,> the sector commander replies.

Roku reads from her procedures monitor, keys in the modes, and adjusts them. The band that penetrates the cloud bank out east shows her ... shimmering shapes. One of them flaps its wings.

"Spectre cloak!" she cries in English. Not knowing how to say it in Japanese, she says instead, "Incoming, zero-nine-five!" and starts shooting into the fog, from one cloaked batwing to the next, Cacoe. "Bearings only!" she reports.

As Roku's blue streaks course into the grey, a fireball comes back at her and misses her turret by four metres, blowing a shallow crater in the stone of the wall.

"Zero-eight-five copy my scope settings, code Alpha-Charlie-nine-seven-five," Roku says. More fireballs tear at the wall around her, unable to find the mark. Roku shoots out of the air the ones that air aimed accurately at the turret. "''Hurry'' zero-eight-five! I'm barely hanging on!" she cries.

In the control room in Defense Tower Two, well to the south, just north of the river's exit aqueduct into the base of the wall. The sector commander looks at a situation display and sees nothing. He calls up Roku's scope and sees her shooting at barely distinguishable flapping distortions in the green haze. As she hits each one, it decloaks, recognizable as batwing and cacoe creatures. Suddenly two alarms go off and looking over at his situation display, hundreds of red arrows appear. The teamug slips out of his hands and shatters on the floor at his feet. "Rifle sections three and four to ramparts zero-nine-two," he says calmly, "Power boost zero-nine-five and zero-eight-five."

"Zero-eight-five has been hit!" somebody cries out. The sector commander stares agape at the fireball that was once the turret falling to the ground to the left of the main gate. The same voice cries, "Section Three! Get on your fliers, she's all alone up there!"

Roku, shooting furiously as the force decloaks in front of her, adjusts her turret position within the track system. Fireballs are coming down all around her. <Roku-san, how many?> Samurai asks. Roku, far too busy to think about anything else but her weapon, dances her left hand over several switches. Her weapon switches from firing one beam every half second to a nearly continuous stream of bursts thirty every second.

<Roku-san!> Samurai's desperate voice cries.

"Master, standby one," she says.

Samurai, in Defense Tower Two's secret backup control room hidden in one of the shops in the Three-Mid industrial area, makes a call, "Hi, Kaiyou (海洋, Ocean)? I need you to get to the Level Six look-up kiosk and translate this call for me." He plays the recording of Roku's voice in English, <Spectre cloak!>

Roku suddenly starts slowing her fire. A couple more bursts. She empties her lungs in a relieved sigh, "They're retreating." She reaches for her position lever and pushes it forward. A buzzer sounds. Her procedures screen displays the message "Track damaged: unable to reach 095-glacis."

"I can't reach the ground support position for the Toga," she says.

A flying rifleman passes over, near her turret over the mildly damaged wall. He hangs on the invisible suspension effect of his dimly glowing hikarinium buckles, zooming over the edge of the wall with his big rifle in his hands, <It's too late,> he reports, <The Toga convoy is destroyed, all forty carts.>

Samurai slumps in his chair listening to Defense Tower Two report, <Acknowledged, how many casualties?>

<Twelve,> comes the reply, all dead. Samurai's eyes pop open as the report continues, <There are a ''lot'' of scooter tracks in the snow, Master. It looks like a lot of them must have gotten away.>

Roku pulls the action open on her turret's gun, looking at the glowing blue and dangerously hot circuitry. She pokes at the brightest blue glowing part with a screwdriver. With a spark, it flies out of the action and bounces off the cramped interior's roof. She slips in a replacement part with her fingers. Then she pops open the grey box, inserts the screwdriver into a mode switch and turns it from "A" to "B", then slaps the control box shut and pushes the entire glowing blue action back into battery.

<Master Samurai,> Roku says, <That covenant means a lot, doesn't it?> Samurai looks up as Roku reports, <The enemy are pursuing the Toga uncloaked. I can help them out. Current range is twenty-four kilometres>

"Roku-san," Samurai warns quietly, "The wall turret can't shoot that far."

 she says, <Mode B ... is it worth that secret to save the Toga?>

A flyer reports in, <There are about four hundred, Master, under about twice as many Cacoe. We could use some help, sir.>

Before Samurai can speak, his Sector Two commander, orders, <Do it, Roku-san. Mode B is authorized.>

Roku's thumb pushes the red button home. Out of the muzzle of her gun moves a very fast green projectile, cutting a path through the fog as it flies. Two seconds later, another.

"I'm glad we've finally worked all the bugs out of this thing," Roku says. She can easily track her two BFG missiles. In its ultimate form, the projectile can be steered for minor course corrections, and travels at four kilometres per second.

The streaking green fireballs each cut loose several lightning like pulses, avoiding the weaving haibane fliers and targeting only the floating round monsters. Each missile takes out forty of the Cacoe hellspawn before it even explodes. Both explode at the same time, etching beautiful green spiderweb patterns into the sky. Well over half of the attacking enemy force is falling upon the fleeing Toga in little flaming cinders as they tear off on their motorbikes through the snow. The other half decide their best odds are to dive and retreat.

Having just switched her turret weapon back to Mode A, Roku returns her turret's action back to battery.

<Master Samurai,> the Sector commander's voice greets a weary ear, 

Next: [[Battle of Haibi Chapter 14]]: Siege

[http://haibaniki.rubychan.de/wiki/Battle_of_Haibi Back to Battle of Haibi main directory]

Rakka

2016-12-24T20:27:45Z

Fhd remix: A big enough start to be worth the wait?

[[Image:Rakka_maksim.png|thumb|right|Rakka as seen in ''Reflections''.]]
{| border="1"
|+ align="top" style="caption-side: top" | '''Vital statistics'''
|-
|Kanji || 落下
|-
|Meaning || Falling
|-
|Cocoon dream || Falling out of the sky, crow in formation
|-
|Haibane age || 6 months (end of series)
|-
|Biological age || ~14
|-
|True name || 絡果
|-
|Meaning || Meddling nut
|}

== Name ==

Rakka as in falling was chosen as her name in the first episode. The Wall's tag system updated her story, probably in the ninth episode, which was revealed in the twelvth episode when the Communicator gave her her new Rakka-as-in-meddling-nut name tag. She noted that in the first episode, her hatching robe smelled of nuts, but it is not clear whether this is the normal smell of the robe or related to her true name.

== Character ==

Rakka is the main character, and it is rare for a camera far from her to reveal anything significant. She's always reluctant to trouble others for her own benefit, except in situations as desperate as when she fell into the well in the eighth episode. Conversely, she is quick to get involved in helping others, from Reki, her major case, to Dai and Sumika. Consistent with her first name, she is capable of hitting the ground at great speeds with little to no injury, but is otherwise in poor athletic shape. Her red hair tends to be unkempt, although much of this seems to result from a pastry-contaminated halo. She tends to get emotional, mourning at length the loss of her friend [[Kuu]] in the sixth episode, the crow (who appears to be a close friend or relative of her precursor) in the eighth episode, and the pending Day of Flight (or otherwise) of her best friend Reki. Strangely, she gets the relatively lonely job of cleaning the tags in the moat space inside the [[Wall]], a job which she gets after touching it in the ninth episode. Speaking of which, touching the Wall is a rare and serious crime, resulting in a catastrophic illness and potentially long-lasting repurcussions for the offender and others in the community. Rakka escaped such via more luck than skill, and because her offense wasn't so deliberate.

== Precursor ==

Many theories abound about Rakka's precursor, but the most memorable is probably that of ''Reflections'', an anime music video done for the 2006 AKROSS Convention's AMV contest in Russia. In it, she is also Haruka Suzumiya of ''Kimi ga Nozomu Eien'' also known as ''Rumbling Hearts''. Haruka is caught in a car crash while waiting to meet her boyfriend, and remains in a coma for three years. Her appearances in the AMV are reskinned as Rakka, as though she is the only character, mourning the loss of her boyfriend to another woman while imprisoned in Glie. (While they have different seiyu in the Japanese mother tongue, Carrie Savage voices both characters in their English dubs.)

== Future in Glie ==

Little is known of fan fiction which explores Rakka's life as a haibane after ''Haibane Renmei'' ends. (Feel free to add yours if you have one.) While not a featured character, Rakka is one of the most memorable haibane in ''[[FHD Remix]]: Three Worlds In One'', where she lives for 48 years, meddling with hundreds of haibane and aging into a sweet old lady. Her last protege was Menmo, who knew her for eight months before Rakka's Day of Flight. She did get to learn of who tried to steal her boat in the eleventh episode of ''Haibane Renmei'', creatures known in ''FHD Remix'' as "brats" or in ''Doom 3'' officially as "cherubs". She also met other enemy types and inflicted several kills and injuries using the boat's punt. She was also Communicator for quite some time, even as a full-fledged haibane (as opposed to "normal" Communicators, which are haibane with their wings lost. This is apparent in ''Haibane Renmei'', but demystified to a much greater extent in the ''FHD Remix'' trilogy.) She was succeeded by a normal Communicator, and, after a vacancy of just over five years, haibane Tatakai became the new tag cleaner. Haibane Menmo succeeded her as "meddler" in haibane emotional problems.

[[Category:Original Characters]]

FHD Remix Chapter 2

2016-12-24T18:31:31Z

Fhd remix: Correction pass

[http://haibaniki.rubychan.de/wiki/FHD_Remix Back to FHD Remix main directory]

Previous: [[FHD Remix Chapter 1]]: Precious Child; A Shaky Start; The End of the World

== Chapter 2: Forgotten Beasts; Familiar Mask; Silent Towers ==

She flies over the nameless battlefield, Tatakai dreams, still unable to remember her old name, nor those of any of her colleagues. She took off that evening to tackle an enormous monster that was threatening a village, had cut off its evacuation route. The enemy she fights against has no qualms about wiping out whole camps of refugees. She flies. She is supporting a squad on the ground who are armed with rifles. She is armed to the claws for this one. She has a rocket launcher on each of her grey wings and in her hands is the super-cannon she remembered dying with in her cocoon dream. In this memory, she does not remember the name of the beast, but somehow winds up refering to it as ''Hogosho'' in her later recollections (Japanese for ''Guardian''.)

This monster is the size of a dump truck, walks on all fours and on her back is glowing veins as though her blood were liquid steel. As she trots along, her eyeless, earless head doesn't turn, but looking out for her are three glowing worms flying about ahead of her, with flashlight-like heads, each of these smaller creatures is about the size of a trash can, a bit more than a metre long.

There are several types of monsters on the ground, but the most dangerous to her squad, as well as being the easiest to take on the wing, are the enormous ''Bushi no Shito'' (''Hellknight'' or ''Baron of Hell''), which throw green fireballs capable of blowing a marine armored car to pieces. <There's only eight of them>, she thinks. Smaller, but far more dangerous to her, are the commandos with the chain guns. Watching their tracers trying to find her, she cuts loose a pair of her rockets and goes into a harsh right roll. Her team's sniper concentrates on them from a distance, switching ammo types with a big straight pull handle. In one mode it will launch high speed projectiles just under thirteen millimetres in diameter. In the other, it emits straight blue streams of plasma, almost like lightning. She hears over the device she forgets is called a "radio" that his position has been compromised, and that he is in range of the Bushi fireballs. She comes in low over the field, able to line up four of the beasts, who are too busy dealing with her sniper friend to notice her. She empties her eight remaining rockets into the beasts, and lets loose a broadside single charge from her large cannon.

She lands in the midst of her squad, two of her colleagues nursing wounds that burn instead of bleed. She pops the bottle out of her super-cannon while slashing one of the small orange-fireball throwers, or ''Inpu (Imp)'' with her left alula claw. A colleague reloads her rocket launchers for her, anxious to see her back in the sky. Two others cap the Hogosho's glowing ''Sakigake (Seeker)''. She taps a rifleman with a primary, telling him to spare the little creature for a few seconds while she slams home a replacement bottle in the left side of her super-cannon.

"Tora! Tora! Tora!" she screams as she runs several paces in the direction of the Hogosho. (After she wakes, she'll realize that she was speaking a different language, and these weren't her actual words.) Her rifle colleague shoots the Sakigake creature, which goes dim and drops. The Hogosho calls for more as Tatakai lifts off, getting her alula claws back into her rocket launcher trigger loops. Flapping to gain altitude, she clears over sheets of fireballs emanating from the beast. The Hogosho's portal opens up as she charges her super-cannon. The Hogosho sees her way too late, rising high over her own horizon in the angriest shade of flourescent green. Too late to change her mind over the portal she has opened above herself, the almost blind creature is almost totally unaware of anything other than Tatakai without her seekers. The green fireball separates from Tatakai's super-cannon, which she then lets go of because it is too hot for her hands, letting it dangle from a lanyard she doesn't release in this flight. Six rockets pass the fireball on their way to the glowing blue portal above the Hogosho. She screams the name of a fallen friend, so silent is her voice in the dream. Tatakai the ''Haibane'' can feel the loss and rage of Tatakai the ''Featherwing'' in her mysterious dream.

The Hogosho screams as her portal is destroyed. She falls down and comes apart into flaming bits. Tatakai lands next to her sniper colleague, now deceased, his body torn apart by one of the smaller creatures. "Saviour!, we need you ''now!!''" she cries as she surveys the human smithereens that used to be her marine squad. Without time enough to rest, hardly mourn, she raises the sniper's rifle to her shoulder and starts using it immediately, her super-cannon still too hot from the Hogosho. Now that the route is clear, she must get the village evacuated before it is overrun.

--------

Tatakai wakes from her dream in her room in the town of Glie, lying on her face, her small white wings spread from her shoulders. She has cut into her simple white gown, openings for the wings she had in her previous life. In gratitude, in mourning, or perhaps, just in case. Even she isn't so sure. Her recently completed wing covers are on the end table beside her, needle still on the thread, dangling over the edge.

"Eight hours exactly," Kurai remarks dryly, "four nights in a row. I'll use you to calibrate my clocks," she giggles.

Tatakai, folds her new wings over her back, then sighs with a tear, <Now I have time to mourn, to rest after the battle, under the altar with my friends, waiting for the Saviour's return.>

"How do your wings feel?" The shorter red-haired girl asks.

"Like they belong there," Tatakai sighs, rolling her eyes up at her halo, "I don't like ''unknown'' things. And this life is so much different. It still feels like I could get deployment orders any moment."

"Well, the Communicator gave you four days before summoning you to the temple, so he probably won't let you speak. You'll need to know how to use your wings." Kurai takes Tatakai's hands one in each. "It's usually a bit of effort to get your wings and arms to respond separately."

Without so much as a twitch in her arms, Tatakai flaps her wings and does several twists and turns, as she says, "Take off, bank left, bank right, turn, climb, dive," and as her feathers flatten against her back, the first couple of primaries hugging her sides, "land," and a couple more flaps. "But there's not much point is there? They're too small to fly with."

Kurai lets go of her hands and sighs, "I keep forgetting, sorry. Let's just skip to the signals." Kurai tells her about the ornamental bells, greeting is a slight bow and ringing the bells on your wrists. ''Yes'' is ringing the bells on your right wing, ''No'' is ringing the bells on your left wing. [''Haibane Renmei'' Episode 3]

She gets up, accepts Kurai's offer of hot water, which she then uses to clean her new body. As she cleans her wings, she misses a husband she can't remember, who cleaned her large grey wings for her. She misses cleaning his mottled red wings as well.

She goes up to the temple to visit the Communicator in a green dress, with unused ports for her featherwings. The green pattern has some "patches" that are lighter a bit closer to yellow, and others that are darker, closer to blue.

She stands there, with her bells on her wings and wrists. The old voice asks her, "You named yourself Tatakai (Battle) based on your cocoon dream? Is that correct."

Tatakai shrugs both wings. She wants to talk, ask a few questions of her own, she's really not in the mood for this silent formality that is being imposed on her.

The Communicator appears. Tatakai starts enough that her bells jingle. The strange one-eyed mask that he wears. She has seen it before, but she can't remember where.

"Really," says the old voice of the Communicator, "You need to learn to use your wings as part of your body."

Tatakai gives him a wry smile, one that says, "I'm not going to take this ''insult'' seriously." She flaps her wings once, and the bells disappear under her ventral coverts, silenced by her alula claws. Then she flaps vigorously several times, blowing a few of last year's leaves all around behind her. Extending both her arms, she twirls around on her feet one way, then the other, her wings making the proper movements to maneuver her if she were airborne on the wings of her previous life, a beautiful smile shines on her face, and the bells on her wrists still jingle. She pauses, facing the Communicator, flaps several times as she returns to the greeting position. With her wings fully spread, she releases the bells from her claws, bows slightly, then folds them neatly over her back in a way no other haibane has done before, first primaries crossed behind the small of her back.

"Impressive display," the Communicator says. Tatakai quickly extends her left wing, jiggling the bells vigorously. An emphatic "NO!" according to temple procedures.

"Explain!" he barks.

Tatakai pulls from a breast pocket a drawing of herself in her previous life, featherwings properly deployed, in actual flight.

"You may speak," the Communicator says.

"I could really fly. I was a warrior in the last battle; killed in action. The battle must have been lost. A question please?"

The Communicator (more casual than in the ''Haibane Renmei'' series), responds, "What is your question, Feather Tatakai?"

"Do you know the Saviour?" she asks, "He is why my wings are white."

--------

"You made him nervous mentioning the Saviour," Kurai explains.

Tatakai unfolds her right wing, then chuckles at herself, "Oh, we're not in there any more. Yeah, I could smell some adrenaline there." She seems to be remembering something. "That mask, that mask," Tatakai sighs, "I must have seen something like it in, dang ... somewhere the ground never stopped shaking."

Kurai stops, "Say ''what?''"

"That's all I remember about it," Tatakai says, "Why does it matter?"

"Because he feels the same way about ''you'', Tatakai," Kurai says, resuming her pace, "The night before you arrived, the ground shook. So far as we can tell, it has never happened before in this town's entire history!"

"Then the first haibane with white wings shows up and names herself ''Battle'' and says it's because of the ''Saviour''," Tatakai affirms, "Not stuff you're used to, I take it."

"What are you here for?" Kurai asks as though Tatakai was sent by Glie's original architect, complete with marching orders.

"I have no idea," Tatakai says, "only this feeling that whatever it is, is just beginning." She walks a few more paces and says, "...and..."

Kurai, after a couple more of the slow paces back to Old Home from the temple, "And?"

"That," Tatakai sighs, "something ''else'' is coming to its end."

--------

The next day, as they walk down the grassy, rutted road to the town of Glie, in the middle of the circular area enclosed by the mighty wall, with a section nestled over towards the eastern limit, Tatakai and Shimoni chat with each other. The hay field next to them is cut and shut down for the winter, stiff stubborn blades of its perennial grass poke through the snow.

"You look familiar," Tatakai says to Shimoni.

"Something from your dreams? Perhaps we met in our previous lives," she offers.

"I don't think so," Tatakai says, "I'm remembering you as though I've seen a picture of you." She stops and closes her eyes, "''Please'' let me see, Sa-" her eyes pop open. Suddenly she turns to Shimoni and asks, "What was your cocoon dream again?"

"I don't remember it completely but I was on a tall ladder," Shimoni tells. "Below me something was rotating and the wind changed direction around me. That wind change felt very ''very'' wrong. Only time in real life I've ever felt anything like that was that ground tremor, but it wasn't as bad. That's all I can remember."

"I saw your picture at the ''bottom'' of a ladder, in a small," Tatakai is frustrated that she can't find the words, "device with a glowing window into it. That's not right, but it's the best I can do right now. I used the device to-"

"To what?" Shimoni asks.

"We'll talk about it later," Tatakai says with tears on her cheeks, "I can only process so much at once, and I just, for the first time since I emerged from the cocoon," Tatakai sobs, chews on her knuckles. "Just now, I ''heard'' him."

"Heard ''who?''" Shimoni asks.

"It was just a whisper, but after, who knows how long I've been asleep," Tatakai rambles, "It's incredible to ''hear'' his voice and ''feel'' his love, even if I can't remember his name. To be able to know that his blood still works in this world, and- and- just to ''know-''"

"Tatakai," Shimoni turns to her crying friend, Tatakai's eyes and tears are just as complex and bewildered as her words, as she, among other things, compares the Shimoni in front of her with the image of the lady on her handheld device in the vision. "Who are you talking about?" Shimoni finally asks.

"The ''Saviour!''" Tatakai cries.

"I still have no clue who you're talking about," Shimoni says, "You're the only person I've ever met who's used the word like that."

"He says, All authority has been given to me. Go and make disciples of all the nations," Tatakai bawls, "baptizing them in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Teach them to obey everything I have taught you. I will always be with you until the end of the ''world'', he says." Tatakai raises her arms in bewilderment, "What does that ''mean?'' I mean, the world ''has'' ended. Shimoni, I have no idea who I'm talking about. What does baptize mean? All I know, is that it ''works.''"

Works on what?

After several minutes of silently walking along, they start talking about the more practical problems of of the windmills and North Wing housing project.

Shimoni isn't brave enough to take the erratic "newborn" to the clock tower, so it falls to Menmo a few days later. Tatakai stands nearly chin to forehead on the diminutive elder as they look over the railing.

"It's a circle?" Tatakai asks.

"Yes," Menmo says, "The wall around Glie is a big circle, and we're in the middle of it. This is the tallest structure in town, and still it can't see anything over the wall. It helps that the tower is in the bottom of the shallow bowl that Glie is in."

"Nobody knows this world's ''context,''" Tatakai says, "It is being hidden from us. Glie could be in the middle of a forest, the middle of the sea, or even floating in the air, and there's no way we'd be able to tell. When the Toga open their gates, there is an inner and an outer gate." She sighs, "And whenever the inner gate is open, the outer gate is closed. Nobody outside can see what is inside. Nobody inside can see what is outside, and the only clue we have is delta radiation sickness."

"Isn't it wonderful in Glie?" Menmo asks, "From what I've seen, it's better than I deserve. Could this be heaven, Tatakai?"

"No," Tatakai says flatly, "I know its not because there are too many things to cry about. Do people still die?"

"Haibane usually don't," Menmo answers cheerfully. Tatakai snaps her head at her so hard she wondered if it might twist off her friend's neck. "If a haibane escapes her circle of sin, she is called and guided to the forest shrine, and disappears in a brilliant flare of light. It is our Day of Flight." Menmo stoops over the railing, tears in her eyes.

"What's the matter?" Tatakai asks.

"Rakka," Menmo sobs, "I still miss her, even after eight years. I knew her for only eight months. She was sweet, and her kindness never ended. Her name means ''meddling nut'', and she could ''meddle'', I tell you. As soon as I felt like I needed to talk to somebody about anything, especially my cocoon dream, she would visit and casually bring up the topic. No pressure at all, but somehow she knew what was weighing on my mind." Menmo reflects on the old lady, who was about sixty years old physically when she left. "She was the ''Communicator'' too, always wore the mask in the Temple and when the Toga were around, said they were uncomfortable without it." Menmo sighs, "She warned me that she was the only Communicator she knew of who was comfortable showing her face, and that her successor would probably never be seen without his mask."

"She was right, there," Tatakai affirms casually, then reflects. "Rakka." Tatakai tries the name on her tongue, "Seems like an odd name if it's ''meddling nut''. That doesn't sound like a cocoon dream; just hearing it I'd sooner guess that it meant ''falling.''" (see [[Rakka]])

"I don't know," Menmo says, "apparently I was the last person she talked to. I was a young feather back then, but I was grown up in my cocoon dream. At first, I needed to lean on her for affirmation. My identity couldn't stand on its own. I had never grown up in my previous life even as my body matured, and leaned on my mother, then later my husband. Rakka was the first person in two lives to let me grow up. Her Day of Flight was part of that process. It forced me to look after myself: cry on my own shoulder, seek my own praise, pick up the pieces when my heart was broken."

"How did you remember so much?" Tatakai asks, "That's more than ''I'' remember and everybody tells me my dreams are unusually detailed."

"I don't," Menmo says, "Rakka said she read the story from the tags inside the wall and was trying to find out whose story it was. She was surprised that it was me ... I was smaller than Tsunami at the time, like five or six apparent years. The story is about a wife struggling to develop her identity in an oppressive marriage, with no one to lean on."

"How did you die?" Tatakai asks, "That's what most cocoon dreams are about."

"I don't know," Menmo confesses, "the only thing that my dream tells me is that I had wings that I could fly with. Rakka never even acknowledged them. You are the ''first person'' ever to tell me they were real."

Tatakai squints off towards the horizon, "There are very few birds," she comments. "Are they all crows? The ones that fly, I mean?"

"As far as I can tell, the ravens are the only creatures that can fly over the wall." Menmo chuckles, "Actually, I'm not too sure if they're ravens or crows. There was once a difference, but ravens were better respected, so we call them ravens out of respect."

Tatakai closes her eyes, listening to the distant, soothing chime of Kana's clock. She remembers something about the building she's standing on and quickly reaches up and plugs her ears.

"What are you doing, silly?" Menmo asks with a nudge.

Tatakai turns around and looks up at the dial face on the central clock tower, on which balcony she stands. It reads fourteen-past-three when it should read five o'clock. It does not tick. Tatakai pulls her hands out of her ears.

Menmo gasps, "Almost four months in Glie, and you didn't realize the central clock didn't work?"

Tatakai is surprised at herself. "Oops," she says. "Say, why do they call it ''Kana's'' clock anyway?"

Menmo explains, "Kana ... that's River Fish, by the way, got the clock operational fifty five years ago. Rakka remembered her, but her Day of Flight was long before I emerged. She also maintained the windmills. Her mechanical ability was ''legendary.'' She helped the radio station stay on the air, and that was the first thing that crapped out after she Flew." Menmo points to a skinny lattice tower nearby, below the horizon. "Now we've lost the technology. Nobody has a working radio anymore."

Tatakai just stands there, pondering the world she has entered into. She remembers the device she identified Shimoni's bones with at the bottom of the ladder that the Saviour showed her on the way into town.

"Perhaps," she wonders allowed, "technology and heaven don't mix."

Was she imagining, or actually hearing the guffaws of her God?

Next: [[FHD Remix Chapter 3]]: Doom

[http://haibaniki.rubychan.de/wiki/FHD_Remix Back to FHD Remix main directory]

File:Rakka maksim.png

2016-12-24T18:22:25Z

Fhd remix: A cropped capture of Rakka from Maksim's ''Reflections'' AMV, which proposed Haruka Suzumiya from ''Kimi ga Nozomu Eien'' as Rakka's precursor.

A cropped capture of Rakka from Maksim's ''Reflections'' AMV, which proposed Haruka Suzumiya from ''Kimi ga Nozomu Eien'' as Rakka's precursor.

FHD Remix Chapter 1

2016-12-23T16:28:58Z

Fhd remix: /* FHD Remix Chapter 1: Precious Child; A Shaky Start; The End of The World */ Correction pass

[http://haibaniki.rubychan.de/wiki/FHD_Remix Back to FHD Remix main directory]

== FHD Remix Chapter 1: Precious Child; A Shaky Start; The End of The World ==

(Opening theme ''[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hi_u9KUeaTk Precious Child]'')

9 Days after the Winter Solstice, 54 years after the emergence of Rakka, city of Glie.

"Did you enjoy the Bell Nut Festival, Tsunami?" Menmo asks. She stands just over a metre and a half tall and sounds mature in her tone and words, but not in her voice and looks, apparently about fourteen years old. The small grey wings over her shoulders and the halo fixed over her head as though part of an invisible top hat makes her look like the caricature of an angel, a ''haibane'', a mere memory of the powerful ''featherwing'' she inhabits in her dreams. She is stooped over, for her charge is half a metre shorter.

"Yeah, it was so great to see the wall glow!" the little girl squeals from her winter coat, bouncing up and down on her feet. She, too, has grey wing and a halo.

Glie is an enormous fortified area, within which live just under six thousand people, human and haibane, in a curiously isolated world. No one is allowed to leave and come back, except for the mysterious Toga, who cover their faces and never speak. They alone moderate trade with the outside. This is why nobody in Glie knows the word ''earthquake''.

The tremor would be no big deal at all in a city used to earthquakes. The only damage it caused to the community of Old Home was to cause a glass to slide off the kitchen counter and break (although one might wonder how the rickety North Wing could stand at all, let alone the shaking of the ground.) Menmo efficiently gathers up the children and takes a count. The new year begins the Saturday after the winter solstice, always, and the wall glows with a mysterious bright light at midnight every year, echoing the happy unspoken thoughts of all Glie-jin over the Bell Nut Festival, or so they say. The presence of the monolithic stone wall and its strange properties don't bother the Glie-jin. It has always been there.

No person or record remembers an earthquake happening in Glie ... ever.

--------

She wakes up, and quickly realizes that she is in a tank of fluid, large enough that if she curled up, none of her extremities would touch the sides. Well ... perhaps her long flowing blonde hair. Feeling the walls, she wonders if it is a natural construct. Coming back to her senses, she realizes that she is probably in the sensory deprivation chamber of her enemies, and that they are trying to get information out of her. Instinct, however, tells her she can break out of it. While she scrapes away the soft inner layer, she realizes that she is breathing the fluid, not air through a mask; the only thing she's wearing is a plain white gown with a tie closure at her back. She is confused out of her wits, it's like nothing in her mind matches up with her surroundings. The hard shell of the cocoon seems cold. Planting her feet in the soft layer behind her, she starts pounding on the shell with her fist, cracking it, she can feel the pressure dropping around her ears. ''I have to finish now or I'll die.'' Die? Didn't she die? She's thinking ... she remembered dying ... or at least suffering life-threatening injuries. Nonetheless, she keeps pounding on the leaking cocoon shell.

It shatters, and the rush of fluid carries her out into the room, which is dark. She holds her breath until the fluid level gets low enough that she can keep her mouth and nostrils above it by resting her head on the edge of the hole she broke in the cocoon. Leaning over the edge of the cocoon facing back into it, she exhales the fluid from her lungs and draws in air, then starts coughing the rest of it up. She passes out on the cocoon's edge, wondering why she kept thinking of this strange tank as a "cocoon".

Waking up, sensing that several hours had passed, she feels very cold, alone in the room. She listens, looks around. Notices the grey sunlight rays poking between the slats on the room's window. <Can I still hear well enough?> she thinks, as she approaches the window in the strange, messy room. Peeking between the slats, she can see that it is snowing outside, the harbingers of a blizzard that is throttling down the sun's light. Shivering, she lifts up the still damp gown until the hem is at her ribcage, then concentrates. Sharp pains stab out of her shoulders up her arms and down her back. ''Impossible'', she gasps, dropping it. Examining herself, she appears to be totally uninjured. She dusts off the top half of the body mirror leaning against the wall, the bottom half having been washed by the cocoon fluid. She opens the back of the strange gown and sees two large bruises on her shoulder blades. "Yeah, whatever," she mutters aloud and ties the robe back up. <Did I lose my wings?> she thinks, < I'm freezing ... if I can't deploy, I have to find help or insulation.>

She's not surprised to find the room's one door locked. She ''was'' surprised to be able to knock it down with a single kick. Obviously the building she was in wasn't well maintained ... probably totally abandoned. She isn't a prisoner after all. She calls out, "Help!" before she starts wandering down the hall in her search of insulation, clothing, blankets, anything. She's about seventeen-ish, she thinks, but can't remember (what's the point without a calendar and any idea how long she had been in the cocoon anyway?), about 165 centimetres, blonde hair extending past the welts on her back. "Help!" she cries again.

"Coming!" is the answer she hears. Another girl, younger perhaps. The lady is getting weak from the cold and a bizarre fever, so she is happy to hear an answer. The girl emerges from the stairwell door, stunned at her new guest's appearance. She's just 152 centimetres tall with dark hair. The shivering blonde lady gasps at her host's playful cherub features. Wings splay from her back and a glowing halo hovers over her head.

"What are you?" the guest gasps.

"Haibane," she answers simply, "Ashfeather," with an indication to her wings.

"Haibane?" the taller guest gasps, "Where am I? Where are ''my'' wings?"

"North Wing, 3rd Floor, the Old Home in the district of Glie," the shorter hosts answers, taking her hand, she instructs, "We have to get you to the guest room before you freeze. Come on!"

Following her host, the young lady runs to the end of a long corridor, then briefly outside into the blizzard, across the snow into the East Wing in her wet bare feet. Her host shows her to a bed, then wraps her up in its blankets.

"'Where are ''my'' wings?' she says" the diminutive host teases, "They will grow soon, be patient. I've never heard of a haibane so eager to get her wings."

"I'm not a haibane, I'm a-" she gasps, <''What am I called? Why can't I remember??''> Switching threads, the guest says. "My wings are secret, but I'll show them to you anyway," she says, she jolts forward, cries in pain. "I can't deploy them!" she cries.

"My name is Menmo," the host says as two more haibane enter the room. "This is Shimoni," she says, then pointing out the taller red head with long hair, "and here is Kurai."

Kurai sighs, "I'm going to get her halo." She quickly retreats.

"So, tell us about your cocoon dream," Menmo says, "Haibane are named after their cocoon dreams. I dreamed about flying in the fluffy clouds like a bird, I had fluffy invisible down over my body to keep me warm ... so my name ''Menmo'' means ''fluffy''."

The guest answers, "Perhaps you were once like me."

"You can't steal her name," Shimoni laughs.

"I'm not," the guest sighs, "I just wonder if we were the same kind before we came here. Secret wings."

Menmo seems very interested to hear more, but doesn't consider it urgent enough to press.

Shimoni explains, "I dreamed that I was climbing down a deep shaft, climbing what seemed like an endless ladder to get down to the bottom. So I am called ''Shimoni'', for downward."

"I'd tell you my name first, but I can't remember it. I remember such detail about my life," she cries, "it's awful, don't make me describe it now. Let me get my bearings first."

"So," Menmo asks, "what do we call you until then?"

The guest cries, "Tatakai! Tatakai (闘) will be my name in this world," she starts crying. The two haibane gasp.

Menmo sighs, "If that fits your dream, it must be very painful."

--------
The sounds of battle fill her thoughts, she flies over a red battlefield over her enemies, on her Featherwing wings, wielding a large silver weapon with a trapezoidal muzzle. She takes aim at a group of her enemies holding down the firing stud, who look up and see her. The weapon fires a huge green fireball, lightning like emissions come from it, one for each enemy in the group. She banks left to get clear. Her weapon's discharge creates a massive explosion. Drawing enormous amounts of firepower from other enemies below her, she gets ready for another shot as she turns back to friendly territory for more ammunition. She pops a large empty bottle out of the left side of the gun, and from her pouch puts the last of the full green bottles into it. She holds down the weapon's trigger, charging it.

She is hit. Her left wing is blown to pieces. She furls, making her right wing and the shredded root of her left wing disappear. Her left arm gnarls up, her thumb and first finger literally vanish; the remaining three curl around the cannon's lanyard release, the tether between her and the weapon pops loose. Right hand still on the handle, she locks the firing stud and removes the safety interlock while falling out of the sky. She knows she can't make it. She tosses the weapon aside and lets it fall into a dense group of creatures. They throw fireballs from their hands, which burn when they hit. After taking several hits from those, her gun, still close to her in the air, explodes. All she sees is white, and all sound disappears.
--------

"The battle at the end of the world!" she cries.

Menmo suddenly realizes, "your wings are about to come out," she opens the back of Tatakai's robe.

"Get away, get clear!" Tatakai cries. Shimoni and Menmo back away. Tatakai says, "Farther ... I can't control them, I don't know if I can keep them folded ... I don't want to hurt you."

Her wings emerge from her back in a bloody eruption. Tatakai screams, elbows pulled down in front of her, clutching the robe over her breasts. The wings are only slightly larger than the wings of a normal haibane.

Tatakai looks around herself, spreading one of the wings with a groan. "That's it?" she gasps.

Menmo, standing there timidly, mutters, "What we're you expecting? If you had wings before, you don't have the same wings in this world. May we approach now?"

Tatakai nods, "I feel awful. These wings don't feel like my own, and they hurt. Will they ever furl?" she asks.

"Furl?" Menmo asks as she starts to use a cloth to wipe the blood and bits of fat from Tatakai's feathers. "What a mess!" she exclaims.

"My old wings could ... I could deploy and furl them at will, make them appear and disappear. I could use them to fly," Tatakai explains. "Oh," she realizes, "stroke the other way along the feathers, the barbs lean towards the-" she suddenly remembers these are different wings. "Uh, Menmo, which way do the barbs lean on the quills of the feathers? Do they lean towards the feather's root or away."

Menmo answers quickly, "Away, silly, like any feather..."

Tatakai lowers herself to rest on the bed. Shimoni goes around to the other side and starts washing her right wing. Menmo then says, "...except in my cocoon dream."

Tatakai gasps, "Your cocoon dream? Describe your wings, please."

Menmo remembers, "They were ''big'', I can't remember how much they spanned, but I could not reach the tips. They didn't come out of my back like these ... they came out lower, on my sides."

Tatakai sighs, "Menmo, I think we were the same kind before we came here."

"Tatakai," Shimoni asks, "with such a high fever and the pain of your new wings breaking out, you were still able to talk to us."

Tatakai responds, "I named myself ''Battle'', Shimoni. I was a warrior, used to pain and blood," she sighs and plonks her head on the pillow. "Is it safe to sleep?" she asks.

"Of course, Tatakai," Memno says, "We're not at war, and Shimoni and I will be right here for at least an hour to wash your wings." With that, Tatakai closes her eyes and is snoring within a few breaths.

--------

She stirs. <My wings?> she thinks. She props herself up on her arms. <They hurt.> She moans.

"Tatakai?" Kurai starts to ask.

"Remembering," she says, "that I'm a ''haibane'' now, not what I was before. What does your name mean?"

"Gloomy," her host says, "I was in a forest at night in my dream, crying. I don't remember what I was crying over." She turns to her, "Tatakai, you are one ''weird'' haibane. No haibane has ever slept exactly eight hours, to the second on her first night. And ... you snore like a sawmill! How would you hide from your enemies with a racket like that?"

"I don't remember if I ever slept in my enemy's presence," she sighs, "I guess they told you about me, huh?" Kurai was off getting Tatakai's halo while she named herself.

"Of course," Menmo says.

"You didn't sleep?" Tatakai asks.

"How could we," says Shimoni, "through all that racket? I didn't think a haibane could be that loud, even on ''purpose''."

Kurai chuckles, "You are one strange haibane, Tatakai."

"Really?" she says, sitting up and looking around.

"Really!", Kurai says, "For starters, your wings are pure white, which is the first time ever. Haibane means ''ashfeather'', our wings have alway been gray, ''always''. And, they've never been so big. Your first task will have to be to make your own wing covers, we don't have any that fit you. Anyway, down to business."

Kurai opens the smoking mould with Tatakai's new halo. She places it over her head with tongs. "Feather Tatakai," she says warmly, "To be a guide to your future as a Haibane, I give you this halo."

Tatakai nervously asks, "Are you sure about this?"

"Of course," Kurai says, letting go of the halo. It falls like any ordinary object right on Tatakai's head.

"Ow!" she cries, throwing it away with her fingers, which she then sucks on because of the burn.

Other things drop: Kurai's lower jaw, her arms, and her tongs, in that order. The halo on the floor still glows, adding its own ring shaped burn to the others in the wood on the floor. "Another first," she gasps, "Halos fall from the the heads of new Haibane often, but around, at the least ... I've never heard of one that did not even try."

"Let it cool a bit, then we try again," says Tatakai. "Any other firsts?"

Menmo says, "Until you, cocoons never hatched in winter," waving her hands for emphasis, "not even once, and also ... you hatched on a Saturday, Tatakai. That is the first time such things have ever happened."

"What? Oh, no," Tatakai gasps, "That's ''never'' supposed to happen, is it?"

Shimoni answers, "Well, I'm not sure about ''supposed'' to, only that it has never happened before."

"Tell me, where am I? You said town of ''Glie'' when we first met in the North Wing?" Tatakai begs.

"Yes," answers Menmo, "Haibane are not allowed to leave the town, or even approach its walls, only the Toga are free to come and go, and while in town, they never speak or show their faces. Only the Communicator is allowed to talk to them, and usually they sign in a secret language with their hands."

"Walls? Not allowed to leave?" Tatakai gasps, "is this a prison camp?"

Kurai answers this time. "No," she sighs. "It may seem so at times, but really it is a ''haven''. There is evil outside the walls," she explains, "even to touch the wall could mean death, and only herbs from the Haibane Temple can cure the resulting sickness."

"Sickness?" Tatakai asks, "what kind of sickness?"

Shimoni explains, "Nobody knows for sure. You'd feel cold, numb, unable to feel your wings, toes or fingers. You feel fine otherwise, but freezing cold to someone who touches or comes near you ... then you run a high fever you die from without treatment."

Tatakai gasps, "Delta radiation? Oh no!"

Kurai scoffs, "Radiation! Never heard of it."

"Tell me, Menmo," Tatakai asks expectantly, "Who rules Glie?"

Menmo looks at the other two, all three haibane just shrug, "We answer to the Communicator in the temple. He leads the ''Haibane Renmei'', the Ashfeather Council."

Tatakai, increasingly distraught, begs, "Is there a man ... a man with holes in his hands and in his feet, white hair, fiery eyes, a voice that sounds like a waterfall, a glowing face, words that cut like a dagger, feet that glow like bronze? Is there anyone like that, anywhere?"

Again, the haibane shrug.

"Such flights of fancy," Kurai mutters, "You remember that much from before your past?"

Tatakai cries, "I read about him in a sacred text, he's supposed to be here. He saved the world! Saviour!" she wails, "Why are you taking so long?"

Menmo asks hopefully, "You can't remember his name, can you?"

Tatakai shakes her head, "But ... I knew him, where did he go? Saviour!" she puts her head in her hands and cries. "Glie is all that's left, isn't it? The rest of the world is a wasteland because the war I died in before coming here was lost."

Menmo's eyes fade away into her own dream of the future: hoping that a mystical Saviour really does exist.

She notices what she's wearing, the plain white robe that she emerged from the cocoon in. "I know now," she sighs, staunches her tears, and sniffles, "I just have to be patient, don't I?"

At those words Kurai again picks up the fallen halo with the tongs and places it over Tatakai's head. When she lets go, it stays there.

"How many haibane are there?" she asks.

Shimoni answers, "Well, there are more in the Abandoned Factory, but here, there is just us four Elder Feathers plus ... what is it, thirteen?" she turns to Menmo.

"Fourteen Young Feathers," Menmo answers.

"A total of eighteen Haibane in Old Home?" Tatakai asks.

They nod.

"Good!" Tatakai nearly cheers, "We can tear down that North Wing and use its pieces to build houses that will actually last and be comfortable."

Shimoni says with a smile, "I'm glad you agree, I need help getting the generator out of the basement," she sighs, "I wish the humans would be willing to help, they need the power more than we do, what with their workshops and stores."

"What do you mean?" Tatakai asks, "You're giving the generator to them?"

"She's worried about the old windmills on the Hill of Winds," Kurai says, looking out the window at them, "I can't see what the coughing old generator could have in common with them. They're noisy, but they sound nothing like that smelly old clunker."

"I need to figure out how it works," Shimoni says, "I'm having trouble finding books in the library, but one I saw said something about magnetic induction or something like that. All it did was put some names to what I could just remember."

"So you remember things too?" Tatakai asks, "Like me..." she holds up her fingers about nineteen millimetres apart. "It was red plastic, this wide," she describes, "and I'd put it into the lower opening of this grey stick I hold against my shoulder, a plastic tube under the metal tube would store up to eight of them. I'd pull the forward grip wrapped around the plastic tube in my left hand, that would move the red thing from the plastic tube up into the metal tube and seal it in nice and tight. I squeeze the little lever under my right index finger, so a spring-loaded pin would hit a tiny brass cup in the bottom of the red thing to light this powder, and bang. The plastic cup full of lead pellets would emerge from the red thing, travel out the end of the metal tube and-" She shakes her head in dismay, "Now, I remember what it was for."

"Well, that's not the generator, obviously," Shimoni says, "What I know is that the wind blows the turbine, that set of three wings that glide through the wind, makes it go around. It turns a shaft that goes into the magnetic part that makes the electricity. The generator in the North Wing, and one like it in Kana's tower that I don't want to mess with yet, both use this smelly fluid the Toga bring in called fuel." She tries to use a gesture, "The burning part of the generator mixes the air with the stuff and ... oh , it doesn't matter how, but it turns a shaft in the magnetic part. I think the magnetic part that makes the electricity is the same on the windmill and the generator and that it doesn't matter how we turn it, as long as it get's turned."

"Her normal work is to build and fix houses," Menmo says, "Nobody knows how to build something," she gestures to the North Wing, "''that'' big anymore. I look after the kids."

"I look after the garden in the temple," Kurai says, "The Communicator tried to get me to go under the wall in one of those big robes, but it's scary down there, dark and creepy. He said nothing would ever harm me as long as I never took off the robe, but I couldn't stand feeling like I was being watched. I quit when I felt something invisible slip past me into the suit room on the second day. The Communicator told me to wait for it to go away, but I just opened the outer door and let it back out. He didn't want me to go down there after that."

"She helps Shimoni with the batteries too," Menmo says, "She taught Shimoni how the ring forge works, so Shimoni could build her own to forge the plates. I admire her. It's so arcane working with an exotic metal that gives off bubbles that burn when you put it in water, and that acid is scary stuff."

"Kids are scarier than battery acid," Shimoni protests, "They're so unpredictable and never quit running around."

"Oh, I know," Menmo says, "that kids eventually will get hungry and tired, but that stuff..." She points towards North Wing's western corner, "It can sit in a bottle for years and still burn your hand off."

"As long as you don't get both kids and battery acid together at the same time," Tatakai says.

Both of them put up their hands, "Let's not."

[[FHD Remix Chapter 2]]: Forgotten Beasts; Familiar Mask; Silent Towers

[http://haibaniki.rubychan.de/wiki/FHD_Remix Back to FHD Remix main directory]

FHD Remix Chapter 1

2016-12-23T16:03:33Z

Fhd remix: /* FHD Remix Chapter 1: Precious Child; A Shaky Start; The End of The World */ Opening parenthesis for theme song link

[http://haibaniki.rubychan.de/wiki/FHD_Remix Back to FHD Remix main directory]

== FHD Remix Chapter 1: Precious Child; A Shaky Start; The End of The World ==

(Opening theme ''[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hi_u9KUeaTk Precious Child]'')

9 Days after the Winter Solstice, 54 years after the emergence of Rakka, city of Glie.

"Did you enjoy the Bell Nut Festival, Tsunami?" Menmo asks. She stands just over a metre and a half tall and sounds mature in her tone and words, but not in her voice and looks, apparently about fourteen years old. The small grey wings over her shoulders and the halo fixed over her head as though part of an invisible top hat makes her look like the caricature of an angel, a ''haibane'', a mere memory of the powerful ''featherwing'' she inhabits in her dreams. She is stooped over, for her charge is half a metre shorter.

"Yeah, it was so great to see the wall glow!" the little girl squeals from her winter coat, bouncing up and down on her feet. She, too, has grey wing and a halo.

Glie is an enormous fortified area, within which live just under six thousand people, human and haibane, in a curiously isolated world. No one is allowed to leave and come back, except for the mysterious Toga, who cover their faces and never speak. They alone moderate trade with the outside. This is why nobody in Glie knows the word ''earthquake''.

The tremor would be no big deal at all in a city used to earthquakes. The only damage it caused to the community of Old Home was to cause a glass to slide off the kitchen counter and break (although one might wonder how the rickety North Wing could stand at all, let alone the shaking of the ground.) Menmo efficiently gathers up the children and takes a count. The new year begins the Saturday after the winter solstice, always, and the wall glows with a mysterious bright light at midnight every year, echoing the happy unspoken thoughts of all Glie-jin over the Bell Nut Festival, or so they say. The presence of the monolithic stone wall and its strange properties don't bother the Glie-jin. It has always been there.

No person or record remembers an earthquake happening in Glie ... ever.

--------

She wakes up, and quickly realizes that she is in a tank of fluid, large enough that if she curled up, none of her extremities would touch the sides. Well ... perhaps her long flowing blonde hair. Feeling the walls, she wonders if it is a natural construct. Coming back to her senses, she realizes that she is probably in the sensory deprivation chamber of her enemies, and that they are trying to get information out of her. Instinct, however, tells her she can break out of it. While she scrapes away the soft inner layer, she realizes that she is breathing the fluid, not air through a mask; the only thing she's wearing is a plain white gown with a tie closure at her back. She is confused out of her wits, it's like nothing in her mind matches up with her surroundings. The hard shell of the cocoon seems cold. Planting her feet in the soft layer behind her, she starts pounding on the shell with her fist, cracking it, she can feel the pressure dropping around her ears. ''I have to finish now or I'll die.'' Die? Didn't she die? She's thinking ... she remembered dying ... or at least suffering life-threatening injuries. Nonetheless, she keeps pounding on the leaking cocoon shell.

It shatters, and the rush of fluid carries her out into the room, which is dark. She holds her breath until the fluid level gets low enough that she can keep her mouth and nostrils above it by resting her head on the edge of the hole she broke in the cocoon. Leaning over the edge of the cocoon facing back into it, she exhales the fluid from her lungs and draws in air, then starts coughing the rest of it up. She passes out on the cocoon's edge, wondering why she kept thinking of this strange tank as a "cocoon".

Waking up, sensing that several hours had passed, she feels very cold, alone in the room. She listens, looks around. Notices the grey sunlight rays poking between the slats on the room's window. <Can I still hear well enough?> she thinks, as she approaches the window in the strange, messy room. Peeking between the slats, she can see that it is snowing outside, the harbingers of a blizzard that is throttling down sun's light. Shivering, she lifts up the still damp gown until the hem is at her ribcage, then concentrates. Sharp pains stab out of her shoulders up her arms and down her back. ''Impossible'', she gasps, dropping it. Examining herself, she appears to be totally uninjured. She dusts off the top half of the body mirror leaning against the wall, the bottom half having been washed by the cocoon fluid. She opens the back of the strange gown and sees two large bruises on her shoulder blades. "Yeah, whatever," she mutters aloud and ties the robe back up. <Did I lose my wings?> she thinks, < I'm freezing ... if I can't deploy, I have to find help or insulation.>

She's not surprised to find the room's one door locked. She ''was'' surprised to be able to knock it down with a single kick. Obviously the building she was in wasn't well maintained ... probably totally abandoned. She isn't a prisoner after all. She calls out, "Help!" before she starts wandering down the hall in her search of insulation, clothing, blankets, anything. She's about seventeen-ish, she thinks, but can't remember (what's the point without a calendar and any idea how long she had been in the cocoon anyway?), about 165 centimetres, blonde hair extending past the welts on her back. "Help!" she cries again.

"Coming!" is the answer she hears. Another girl, younger perhaps. The lady is getting weak from the cold and a bizarre fever, so she is happy to hear an answer. The girl emerges from the stairwell door, stunned at her new guest's appearance. She's just 152 centimetres tall with dark hair. The shivering blonde lady gasps at her host's playful cherub features. Wings splay from her back and a glowing halo hovers over her head.

"What are you?" the guest gasps.

"Haibane," she answers simply, "Ashfeather," with an indication to her wings.

"Haibane?" the taller guest gasps, "Where am I? Where are ''my'' wings?"

"North Wing, 3rd Floor, the Old Home in the district of Glie," the shorter hosts answers, taking her hand, she instructs, "We have to get you to the guest room before you freeze. Come on!"

Following her host, the young lady runs to the end of a long corridor, then briefly outside into the blizzard, across the snow into the East Wing in her wet bare feet. Her host shows her to a bed, then wraps her up in its blankets.

"'Where are ''my'' wings?' she says" the diminutive host teases, "They will grow soon, be patient. I've never heard of a haibane so eager to get her wings."

"I'm not a haibane, I'm a-" she gasps, <''What am I called? Why can't I remember??''> Switching threads, the guest says. "My wings are secret, but I'll show them to you anyway," she says, she jolts forward, cries in pain. "I can't deploy them!" she cries.

"My name is Menmo," the host says as two more haibane enter the room. "This is Shimoni," she says, then pointing out the taller red head with long hair, "and here is Kurai."

Kurai sighs, "I'm going to get her halo." She quickly retreats.

"So, tell us about your cocoon dream," Menmo says, "Haibane are named after their cocoon dreams. I dreamed about flying in the fluffy clouds like a bird, I had fluffy invisible down over my body to keep me warm ... so my name ''Menmo'' means ''fluffy''."

The guest answers, "Perhaps you were once like me."

"You can't steal her name," Shimoni laughs.

"I'm not," the guest sighs, "I just wonder if we were the same kind before we came here. Secret wings."

Shimoni explains, "I dreamed that I was climbing down a deep shaft, climbing what seemed like an endless ladder to get down to the bottom. So I am called ''Shimoni'', for downward."

"I'd tell you my name first, but I can't remember it. I remember such detail about my life," she cries, "it's awful, don't make me describe it now. Let me get my bearings first."

"So," Menmo asks, "what do we call you until then?"

The guest cries, "Tatakai! Tatakai (闘) will be my name in this world," she starts crying. The two haibane gasp.

Menmo sighs, "If that fits your dream, it must be very painful."

--------
The sounds of battle fill her thoughts, she flies over a red battlefield over her enemies, on her Featherwing wings, wielding a large silver weapon with a trapezoidal muzzle. She takes aim at a group of her enemies holding down the firing stud, who look up and see her. The weapon fires a huge green fireball, lightning like emissions come from it, one for each enemy in the group. She banks left to get clear. Her weapon's discharge creates a massive explosion. Drawing enormous amounts of firepower from other enemies below her, she gets ready for another shot as she turns back to friendly territory for more ammunition. She pops a large empty bottle out of the left side of the gun, and from her pouch puts the last of the full green bottles into it. She holds down the weapon's trigger, charging it.

She is hit. Her left wing is blown to pieces. She furls, making her right wing and the shredded root of her left wing disappear. Her left arm gnarls up, her thumb and first finger literally vanish; the remaining three curl around the cannon's lanyard release, the tether between her and the weapon pops loose. Right hand still on the handle, she locks the firing stud and removes the safety interlock while falling out of the sky. She knows she can't make it. She tosses the weapon aside and lets it fall into a dense group of creatures. They throw fireballs from their hands, which burn when they hit. After taking several hits from those, her gun, still close to her in the air, explodes. All she sees is white, and all sound disappears.
--------

"The battle at the end of the world!" she cries.

Menmo suddenly realizes, "your wings are about to come out," she opens the back of Tatakai's robe.

"Get away, get clear!" Tatakai cries. Shimoni and Menmo back away. Tatakai says, "Farther ... I can't control them, I don't know if I can keep them folded ... I don't want to hurt you."

Her wings emerge from her back in a bloody eruption. Tatakai screams, elbows pulled down in front of her, clutching the robe over her breasts. The wings are only slightly larger than the wings of a normal haibane.

Tatakai looks around herself, spreading one of the wings with a groan. "That's it?" she gasps.

Menmo, standing there timidly, mutters, "What we're you expecting? If you had wings before, you don't have the same wings in this world. May we approach now?"

Tatakai nods, "I feel awful. These wings don't feel like my own, and they hurt. Will they ever furl?" she asks.

"Furl?" Menmo asks as she starts to use a cloth to wipe the blood and bits of fat from Tatakai's feathers. "What a mess!" she exclaims.

"My old wings could ... I could deploy and furl them at will, make them appear and disappear. I could use them to fly," Tatakai explains. "Oh," she realizes, "stroke the other way along the feathers, the barbs lean towards the-" she suddenly remembers these are different wings. "Uh, Menmo, which way do the barbules lean on the quills of the feathers? Do they lean towards the feather's root or away."

Menmo answers quickly, "Away, silly, like any feather..."

Tatakai lowers herself to rest on the bed. Shimoni goes around to the other side and starts washing her right wing. Menmo then says, "...except in my cocoon dream."

Tatakai gasps, "Your cocoon dream? Describe your wings, please."

Menmo remembers, "They were ''big'', I can't remember how much they spanned, but I could not reach the tips. They didn't come out of my back like these ... they came out lower, on my sides."

Tatakai sighs, "Menmo, I think we were the same kind before we came here."

"Tatakai," Shimoni asks, "with such a high fever and the pain of your new wings breaking out, you were still able to talk to us."

Tatakai responds, "I named myself ''Battle'', Shimoni. I was a warrior, used to pain and blood," she sighs and plonks her head on the pillow. "Is it safe to sleep?" she asks.

"Of course, Tatakai," Memno says, "We're not at war, and Shimoni and I will be right here for at least an hour to wash your wings." With that, Tatakai closes her eyes and is snoring within a few breaths.

--------

She stirs. <My wings?> she thinks. She props herself up on her arms. <They hurt.> She moans.

"Tatakai?" Kurai starts to ask.

"Remembering," she says, "that I'm a ''haibane'' now, not what I was before. What does your name mean?"

"Gloomy," her host says, "I was in a forest at night in my dream, crying. I don't remember what I was crying over." She turns to her, "Tatakai, you are one ''weird'' haibane. No haibane has ever slept exactly eight hours, to the second on her first night. And ... you snore like a sawmill! How would you hide from your enemies with a racket like that?"

"I don't remember if I ever slept in my enemy's presence," she sighs, "I guess they told you about me, huh?" Kurai was off getting Tatakai's halo while she named herself.

"Of course," Menmo says.

"You didn't sleep?" Tatakai asks.

"How could we," says Shimoni, "through all that racket? I didn't think a haibane could be that loud, even on ''purpose''."

Kurai chuckles, "You are one strange haibane, Tatakai."

"Really?" she says, sitting up and looking around.

"Really!", Kurai says, "For starters, your wings are pure white, which is the first time ever. Haibane means ''ashfeather'', our wings have alway been gray, ''always''. And, they've never been so big. Your first task will have to be to make your own wing covers, we don't have any that fit you. Anyway, down to business."

Kurai opens the smoking mould with Tatakai's new halo. She places it over her head with tongs. "Feather Tatakai," she says warmly, "To be a guide to your future as a Haibane, I give you this halo."

Tatakai nervously asks, "Are you sure about this?"

"Of course," Kurai says, letting go of the halo. It falls like any ordinary object right on Tatakai's head.

"Ow!" she cries, throwing it away with her fingers, which she then sucks on because of the burn.

Other things drop: Kurai's lower jaw, her arms, and her tongs, in that order. The halo on the floor still glows, adding its own ring shaped burn to the others in the wood on the floor. "Another first," she gasps, "Halos fall from the the heads of new Haibane often, but around, at the least ... I've heard of one that did not even try."

"Let it cool a bit, then we try again," says Tatakai. "Any other firsts?"

Menmo says, "Until you, cocoons never hatched in winter," waving her hands for emphasis, "not even once, and also ... you hatched on a Saturday, Tatakai. That is the first time such things have ever happened."

"What? Oh, no," Tatakai gasps, "That's ''never'' supposed to happen, is it?"

Shimoni answers, "Well, I'm not sure about ''supposed'' to, only that it has never happened before."

"Tell me, where am I? You said town of ''Glie'' when we first met in the North Wing?" Tatakai begs.

"Yes," answers Menmo, "Haibane are not allowed to leave the town, or even approach its walls, only the Toga are free to come and go, and while in town, they never speak or show their faces. Only the Communicator is allowed to talk to them, and usually they sign in a secret language with their hands."

"Walls? Not allowed to leave?" Tatakai gasps, "is this a prison camp?"

Kurai answers this time. "No," she sighs. "It may seem so at times, but really it is a ''haven''. There is evil outside the walls," she explains, "even to touch the walls could mean death, and only herbs from the Haibane Temple can cure the resulting sickness."

"Sickness?" Tatakai asks, "what kind of sickness?"

Shimoni explains, "Nobody knows for sure. You'd feel cold, numb, unable to feel your wings, toes or fingers. You feel fine otherwise, but freezing cold to someone who touches or comes near you ... then you run a high fever you die from without treatment."

Tatakai gasps, "Delta radiation? Oh no!"

Kurai scoffs, "Radiation! Never heard of it."

"Tell me, Menmo," Tatakai asks expectantly, "Who rules Glie?"

Menmo looks at the other two, all three haibane just shrug, "We answer to the Communicator in the temple. He leads the ''Haibane Renmei'', the Ashfeather Council."

Tatakai, increasingly distraught, begs, "Is there a man ... a man with holes in his hands and in his feet, white hair, fiery eyes, a voice that sounds like a waterfall, a glowing face, words that cut like a dagger, feet that glow like bronze? Is there anyone like that, anywhere?"

Again, the haibane shrug.

"Such flights of fancy," Kurai mutters, "You remember that much from before your past?"

Tatakai cries, "I read about him in a sacred text, he's supposed to be here. He saved the world! Saviour!" she wails, "Why are you taking so long?"

Menmo asks hopefully, "You can't remember his name, can you?"

Tatakai shakes her head, "But ... I knew him, where did he go? Saviour!" she puts her head in her hands and cries. "Glie is all that's left, isn't it? The rest of the world is a wasteland because the war I died in before coming here was lost."

Menmo's eyes fade away into her own dream of the future: hoping that a mystical Saviour really does exist.

She notices what she's wearing, the plain white robe that she emerged from the cocoon in. "I know now," she sighs, staunches her tears, and sniffles, "I just have to be patient, don't I?"

At those words Kurai again picks up the fallen halo with the tongs and places it over Tatakai's head. When she lets go, it stays there.

"How many haibane are there?" she asks.

Shimoni answers, "Well, there are more in the Abandoned Factory, but here, there is just us four Elder Feathers plus ... what is it, thirteen?" she turns to Menmo.

"Fourteen Young Feathers," Menmo answers.

"A total of eighteen Haibane in Old Home?" Tatakai asks.

They nod.

"Good!" Tatakai nearly cheers, "We can tear down that North Wing and use its pieces to build houses that will actually last and be comfortable."

Shimoni says with a smile, "I'm glad you agree, I need help getting the generator out of the basement," she sighs, "I wish the humans would be willing to help, they need the power more than we do, what with their workshops and stores."

"What do you mean?" Tatakai asks, "You're giving the generator to them?"

"She's worried about the old windmills on the Hill of Winds," Kurai says, looking out the window at them, "I can't see what the coughing old generator could have in common with them. They're noisy, but they sound nothing like that smelly old clunker."

"I need to figure out how it works," Shimoni says, "I'm having trouble finding books in the library, but one I saw said something about magnetic induction or something like that. All it did was put some names to what I could just remember."

"So you remember things too?" Tatakai asks, "Like me..." she holds up her fingers about nineteen millimetres apart. "It was red plastic, this wide," she describes, "and I'd put it into the lower opening of this grey stick I hold against my shoulder, a plastic tube under the metal tube would store up to eight of them. I'd pull the forward grip wrapped around the plastic tube in my left hand, that would move the red thing from the plastic tube up into the metal tube and seal it in nice and tight. I squeeze the little lever under my right index finger, so a spring-loaded pin would hit a tiny brass cup in the bottom of the red thing to light this powder, and bang. The plastic cup full of lead pellets would emerge from the red thing, travel out the end of the metal tube and-" She shakes her head in dismay, "Now, I remember what it was for."

"Well, that's not the generator, obviously," Shimoni says, "What I know is that the wind blows the turbine, that set of three wings that glide through the wind, makes it go around. It turns a shaft that goes into the magnetic part that makes the electricity. The generator in the North Wing, and one like it in Kana's tower that I don't want to mess with yet, both use this smelly fluid the Toga bring in called fuel." She tries to use a gesture, "The burning part of the generator mixes the air with the stuff and ... oh , it doesn't matter how, but it turns a shaft in the magnetic part. I think the magnetic part that makes the electricity is the same on the windmill and the generator and that it doesn't matter how we turn it, as long as it get's turned."

"Her normal work is to build and fix houses," Menmo says, "Nobody knows how to build something," she gestures to the North Wing, "''that'' big anymore. I look after the kids."

"I look after the garden in the temple," Kurai says, "The Communicator tried to get me to go under the wall in one of those big robes, but it's scary down there, dark and creepy. He said nothing would ever harm me as long as I never took off the robe, but I couldn't stand feeling like I was being watched. I quit when I felt something invisible slip past me into the suit room on the second day. The Communicator told me to wait for it to go away, but I just opened the outer door and let it back out. He didn't want me to go down there after that."

"She helps Shimoni with the batteries too," Menmo says, "She taught Shimoni how the ring forge works, so Shimoni could build her own to forge the plates. I admire her. It's so arcane working with an exotic metal that gives off bubbles that burn when you put it in water, and that acid is scary stuff."

"Kids are scarier than battery acid," Shimoni protests, "They're so unpredictable and never quit running around."

"Oh, I know," Menmo says, "that kids eventually will get hungry and tired, but that stuff..." She points towards North Wing's western corner, "It can sit in a bottle for years and still burn your hand off."

"As long as you don't get both kids and battery acid together at the same time," Tatakai says.

Both of them put up their hands, "Let's not."

[[FHD Remix Chapter 2]]: Forgotten Beasts; Familiar Mask; Silent Towers

[http://haibaniki.rubychan.de/wiki/FHD_Remix Back to FHD Remix main directory]

Rise of Glie Chapter 32

2016-01-27T09:12:02Z

Fhd remix: Did I seriously post the wrong chapter and no one noticed for six years???

[http://haibaniki.rubychan.de/wiki/Rise_of_Glie Back to Rise of Glie main directory]

Previous: [[Rise of Glie Chapter 31]]: They Don't Fall

== FHD Remix: The Rise of Glie ==

Chapter 32: Sixty Thousand Transistors

"Well," Bangou says as she pours over the thick pile of paper. She finds an early page in the ream sized stack and shoves most of it away, keeping a small sheaf, "The top page says the logic section is not binding on us. I know I can do better than that."

"How?" Fushoku asks.

"We design a logic section that can do the few basic operations we need very well," she explains, "and then we translate our more complex operations into sequences of the basic operations. Here's an example," she points in the first section that she has decided to keep. Flipping over one of the logic pages to a blank side, she copies the instruction, "Add the value at this address to the value at this address and store it in this address, all memory addresses." She continues, writing the steps under the old instruction, "We write a fast register onto the chip, and load the first value into it directly. Next, we take the second value and write it through the add logic into the register, so the register now holds the sum. Finally, we write the sum in the register to the third memory location."

"I just make the things," Fushoku groans.

"Yeah, and what did you call that stuff again?" she asks pointing at a plastic jar on the workbench.

"Hydrochloric acid," he answers, "does it matter?"

"That's the whole point, isn't it?" she says, "The Saviour brought us all to this world because no one person can do it all. Each of us has our part."

"Yes," Bahitsu says over their shoulders, "and I just learned mine was called thermodamnamics." he giggles.

"That's thermo''dy''namics, boy!" Teacher Shoukai bellows from across Stone Mill's machine hall.

Fushoku and Bangou glance at each other and say almost in unison, "Must be an English word."

They return to their work. Bangou is grinding away at the circuit layout for a memory chip, stooped over a ledger-sized paper with her drafting tools. "How wide are these things again?" she asks.

"Fifty micrometres," Fushoku answers.

"That's too big," she groans, "I can only get sixteen latches on a chip. We'll have to make them smaller as soon as we can."

"That ain't in the next hour," Fushoku grumbles, "They're giving me enough trouble as it is." He cranks a handle on his gangly looking machine, and an almost needle like scalpel blade cuts a tiny slit through an inticrately lined brass plate just twenty five millimetres in diameter, "I wish we had a computer to run this tedious thing ... Between the boredom and the cramps, it's a wonder I get any of them right."

"The problem is, that we won't know if any of them are right until we actually build them," she says, "I find glitches every time I go through a desk run."

"Will the one I'm making right now have any glitches you haven't noticed?" he asks.

"Probably," she says ruefully, "Sorry."

"Ah," Stanley says from behind them, "They said I could always find you here."

Fushoku turns, noticing Aware right behind the human mayor, "What's up?"

Stanley sits down, "The boys are telling me that some of the stuff you've asked for can't be done until," he takes a breath, "you actually start making these things so they can use them."

"Great," Fushoku grunts, "How are we going to build them?"

Stanley hands him a couple of pages, "This is the electrostatic, air cleanliness, and zone temperature we are building right now. It won't get any better than that. But..."

Fushoku looks at the pages in disappointment.

"Here's the idea," Stanley begins, "Of course, once you make a few early models that we can use to control equipment, we'll need to upgrade the equipment with them, and then you can make better chips."

"There's no way we can do that without a massive hit in downtime," Fushoku concludes, "I mean unless we built another-" he catches Stanley smiling.

"Another Wire Factory," Stanley concludes, "next to the one we're building right now. That way one will be running, and one will be upgrading. The steel structure won't go obsolete, of course, but your specification here," he points, "that screws with the brick and mortar, insulations, wiring, and even that funky stuff the Toga offered us called ''drywall.'' I don't see any other way."

Fushoku looks back at him in surprise, "You're willing to build us haibane ''another'' nest?"

Stanley nods.

"The Toga are scrambling for your polyethylene cased junction transistors," Aware says, "''far'' more than I've told you before. You could run that oven twenty-four-seven, have every single one work and they ''still'' wouldn't be sated. We're asking you to make enough so that we can buy the steel for the second-" he pauses, "''wing'' of Wire Factory."

Fushoku takes the purchase order from Aware's hand, glances at it, then hands it back. "Six weeks," he says flatly, "Bahitsu'll tell you the rest." He gets up from his bench, glancing at Bangou, he says, "It's more exciting than this, anyway."

"And maybe I'll find some of those glitches I haven't noticed," she says, "especially if you can save me a few leftovers," she nods to Aware's paperwork.

"Um ... make that ''seven'' weeks," Fushoku says to Aware and Stanley as they start to turn, "That'll include the replacement of every radio in Glie," he announces.

"Why?" Bangou asks.

"We can't have anything new," Fushoku says, "including transistors." Nodding to Stanley, he says, "Haoto and I will get started right away."

"Thanks," Stanley answers.

"Fushoku," Aware says, "That computer isn't ''yours,'' you can use new transistors in it. Besides, there are only about two hundred transistors in Glie, the Toga said that computer will need at least fifty thousand."

"We're not making it out of transistors," Fushoku explains, "We're going to be making it out of Wire Factory's microchips. We need the transistors to test circuit designs."

Aware glances at his purchase order as though it might have an error, then asks Fushoku, "Only seven weeks? Are you sure you read this thing right?"

"Sixty thousand transistors," Fushoku nods, "And I'd love it if you'd sign us for the overtime."

--------

"We've approved the order for sixty thousand transistors," the Communicator signs to the Toga visiting from outside the Wall. "Your shop here in Market Square, will it be doing assembly?"

"How long until the first batch of crystals for that order?" the Toga asks.

The Communicator pats the cart next to him, "The first two batches are right here. Our plant is trying for delivery in 360 batches, at an average of nine per working day."

"''Really?''" he signs with trembling hands, "What about the computer?"

"Nothing on that, yet," the Communicator replies, "They are working on a design we will build in our new factory, which is expected to go into operation in the spring."

"That is well," the Toga replies, "We can do the assembly of computers ourselves once we have the transistors, especially if you can really make nine thousand a week. If it's alright with you, I'll be the only one leaving this week, while the rest of us stay here to attach the leads to these batches and the rest as they come. You'll be needing more fuel, I assume."

The Communicator doesn't respond.

"The plastic we use to encase the transistors uses fuel, does it not?"

"Oops," the Communicator signs.

He turns about and calls, "Feather Aware, did you remember to tell Kenny about the transistors?"

"Yes," he runs up to Washi's side, "His estimate was slow in coming, and we barely-"

"We don't have time to translate it," the Communicator intones as he takes it, then signs to the Toga, "Can you read this at all?"

The Toga tucks it into his robe and replies, "Perfectly, I guess that will be all for today." He turns towards the gate to brief the other Toga.

The Communicator seems quite perplexed as the Toga animatedly discuss the paperwork they've just received.

"Bangou translated it for us," Aware explains, "Don't ask me where she picked it up; I haven't the faintest idea."

Next: [[Rise of Glie Chapter 33]]: Take Your Best Guess

[http://haibaniki.rubychan.de/wiki/Rise_of_Glie Back to Rise of Glie main directory]

User:Fhd remix

2015-12-21T18:40:00Z

Fhd remix: Belated cancellation of name change

I'm Terry Wilson, registered almost everywhere else I've registered as the username "featherwinglove". I wrote [[FHD Remix]] and really enjoyed writing it. I also enjoy reading it over and editing it.

Talk:FHD Remix Chapter 8

2015-12-21T18:38:57Z

Fhd remix: Discovery of Reform-era John Bradford, possible ancestor of Yaiba

== Ancestry ==

Yaiba was born Vanessa Bradford, possibly a descendant of [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Bradford John Bradford] whose life was very similar. (In the real universe, John Bradford is not known to have had any children.) The coincidence of name was not deliberate on my part, as I only discovered the similarities on 2015 December 21, six years after writing the story. There are so many Reformation-era martyrs that this coincidence might not be very remarkable. [[User:Fhd remix|Fhd remix]] ([[User talk:Fhd remix|talk]]) 19:38, 21 December 2015 (CET)

Battle of Haibi Chapter 33

2015-09-06T14:36:57Z

Fhd remix: /* Chapter 33 The Beginning of a New World */ "outmeal packets" found in source file

[http://haibaniki.rubychan.de/wiki/Battle_of_Haibi Back to Battle of Haibi main directory]

Previous: [[Battle of Haibi Chapter 32]]: Quarantine

== Chapter 33 The Beginning of a New World ==

"Monday," the snowbank mutters with Kabocha's voice as the sun's morning light starts to diffuse through the grey sky above.

Another, far younger voice adds, "Does that mean we have to go back to school already?"

"No," Janice says from the snowbank's far end, "We have to build one first.."

"Oh," someone says sadly.

One of the red warning triangles sticks barely out of the snow, which is not quite fifty centimetres deep as the worst blizzard seen in years by the walled community reluctantly comes to an end.

Shiden slogs up to it in a grey Defender-issue winter coat, old enough not to be mistaken for one of the seventy Kabocha handed out to the survivors in Tower Four. He pulls up the sign, stamps down some of the snow around it, and finally puts the stick back into the ground with a bit more height to it.

After a pot of oatmeal and what might be the last cow's milk anyone will ever taste, Kasei stands a few feet outside the perimeter listening to Hagane's plan.

"There's no chance of spreading delta vector under these conditions," he says, "As long as we don't come into direct contact with the humans. The snow isolates us from the living matter in the ground, so we won't be leaving it in our trails."

"We'll leave a few centimetres on the ground as we clear paths," Shinyoo adds, "Which we would be doing anyway so that the organisms in the ground are insulated from the cold."

"We don't have much left for trees," explains Kabocha, "so until the spring thaw, the snow is the best shelter material we have."

"You may also clean out the Tower and make it your own again," Kasei says, "once you feel safe about the uh-"

"Delta vector," Hagane offers.

"Right," Kasei confirms with a certain measure of indifference, "and once we no longer require your services at the camp," he emphasizes.

"Right," Hagane drawls, knowing that'll probably be years, if not generations.

"Janice, are you sure you want to stay with these-"

"I ''have'' to," she interrupts, "Kasei, this delta radiation stuff is serious. It killed Taka. I know you've seen Hagane's handiwork on injuries far worse inflicted by the machinery in your own factory. You ''know'' there was more to Taka's death. I have it. I have delta vector inside me."

"How bad?" Kasei asks.

"I need that awful tasting bradford crap four times a day," Janice sobs, "I'd be dead without it." She looks him in the eye and says, "The kids have it worse. One, his fever won't come down, he'll have to stay here."

Kasei winces, "Is he going to make it?"

"If we feed him," Hagane says, "His nasty gastroenteritis should clear enough of the delta vector out of his system within a few days that he'll be able to work."

"You know the rule," Kasei growls, "We can't afford to support invalids any better than we can support lazies."

"We have him studying the Ochreby Fivesquare house plan to figure out how we can start building it in the spring," Janice explains, "He can be your apprentice then."

"Very well," Kasei says, "but it comes out of your rations. I think fifteen can survive on the food for fourteen for a couple of days." Then he walks away.

Kabocha puts together a shovel from the Defense Tower supply, adding two leaves to each side of the central spade and locking together the two lengths of the shaft. She offers it to Janice, the last of the quarantined ones to be given one. All of the shovels, as well as their coats, have been decorated with red triangles as a warning to the others.

"You didn't tell him it was Kenny," Hagane says.

"Oh," Janice realizes.

"He didn't ask, either," Kabocha moans as he plunges his shovel into the snow to start a hard day of work, by tracing Kasei's tracks back to the main camp.

"Where's Samurai?" Janice asks.

"Refusing to budge," Kabocha says grimly, "Kasei ''did'' notice, by the way."

"Really?" Janice asks, "How can you tell?"

"With him, we have ''sixteen'' in our camp," Hagane explains, "If he doesn't work, we aren't allowed to share our rations with him."

"Maybe he's sicker than we thought?" Janice asks.

"It isn't delta poisoning," Hagane says, then leans in close, "You know he was in charge of the Defenders for the battle. He feels like a failure. I'm having Kenny keep an eye on him just in case he wants to ''harikari'' or something like that."

Keepsie attacks the snow with enthusiasm.

Noticing, Hagane wonders, "Now how did ''she'' get so cheerful all of a sudden?"

"She caught me," Janice confesses, "I'm making her a new dress out of the drapes Kabocha brought back from the tower. Something odd about those drapes," she shrugs, "muddy prints from a bird's feet. I'm guessing a crow."

--------

Samurai, hiding behind his log, nurses the little battery stove, upon which is a rather carelessly torn piece of beef.

"I can't eat this," he says, pulling a blackened leaf away from the barely thawed meat.

"We know," Freddo signs, "But we can." The crow hops a few inches closer to Samurai. His nearly healed wing is still strapped to his body, and he's already explained that he wants the cast off.

A couple packets of instant oatmeal drop out of the sky, one of them bouncing off Samurai's halo with a twang. Quinn, once known as Corvus Juugoban, circles back for another trip to the distant, and uninhabited, Sector Two, where a couple of deserted farmhouses survived the carnage of that weekend.

As soon as Samurai has the cast cut off, Freddo starts preening the tattered feathers locked away for those few weeks.

Samurai tests the radiation output of the oatmeal packets with a fresh leaf, and happily discovers that they are indeed delta-free.

Quinn lands, quite tentatively on a single leg, sinking up to her karina, dragging another piece of the frozen red meat with her out of the snow next to Samurai. She sets it on the hot plate and turns her attention to the thawed, but still raw, beef that Freddo just dragged off.

"Remember the taste, fellas," Samurai sobs, "I think they're extinct."

Freddo swallows a bite of the last beef on Earth, and nods at Samurai before tearing off another. The crows know that outside the wall, cows have been extinct ever since a freak meteor shower burned up all the grassland shortly after Wallace, the first ever sentient crow, emerged two years after Haibi was deployed. They are taking Samurai's advice to heart.

"Juuyon?" Freddo asks, referring to Tess by the number Tori gave her merely because it is far easier to sign.

Quinn signs quite slowly with her recovering leg, "Didn't make it. Found her pieces."

"You sure?" Freddo asks.

"No one else has ever had that many imped remiges," Quinn explains, "She got hellknighted this time. The smell is unmistakable."

Freddo bows his head, then spells out the other crow's name properly, "Nick?"

"Flew off with Roku," Quinn explains.

Making sure he has Samurai's attention, he takes several minutes to sign, "Nick Vitores was Juunanaban. Rokuban was Juice Hightail."

Samurai whispers, "''The'' Nick Vitores and Juice Hightail?"

Freddo painfully spreads his right wing and nods.

"My God," he gasps, "Where's Jack and Devon?"

"No idea," Freddo signs, "Probably still asleep."

Samurai looks about to make sure no one's watching before chowing on his oatmeal, feeling like Elijah [see 1 Kings 17: 1-6], especially after signing off on his tale, ''The Beginning of the World.''

Next: [[Battle of Haibi Chapter 34]]: A Knight Saved

[http://haibaniki.rubychan.de/wiki/Battle_of_Haibi Back to Battle of Haibi main directory]

Wall

2015-03-22T00:38:58Z

Fhd remix: /* Canon from Haibane Renmei */ Found some format bugs

== Canon from Haibane Renmei ==

The town of Glie and its suburbs are surrounded by a wall, this is indeed the single defining feature of the town.

The wall is hazardous to haibane; touching it can lead to the haibane in question becoming fatally ill, and new feathers are warned against even approaching it. It feels cold to the touch, but since few touch the wall and even fewer survive touching it, this is not widely known. The initial symptoms of [[wall sickness]] are a false warmth and anti-fever (the victim feels intensely cold to the touch to others); it is also a very effective painkiller and will numb the sensation of any other injuries the victim may have. Within a few hours, the anti-fever turns to a raging fever that may be treated only by an herbal formula grown in the Haibane Renmei Temple.

It was apparently forged in one constuct and then penetrated for interior and through access in at least two places (the Temple and Great Gate.) The wall contains a hollow space with a moat which may be navigated by boat and accessed through a passage from the Haibane Renmei Temple. A grey armored robe protects occupants from the wall sickness, and dialogue in ''Haibane Renmei'' implies the existence of possible enemies. Lining either side of the moat are catwalks with tags engraved in the language of the [[Toga]]. This language also occurs on the suit, boat, and books in the library that are apparently made of stone.

== FHD Remix ==

The wall is perfectly circular (unlike in the 'Haibane Lifestyle Diary' map), ten kilometres in diameter, and just over 100 metres tall. Much about it has been forgotten, including how it was made and why. It survived unattended for at least a thousand years, but is now looked after by [http://haibaniki.rubychan.de/wiki/FHD_Remix Tatakai]; she knows a lot more about it.

FHD Remix Chapter 34

2015-03-14T00:19:23Z

Fhd remix: That was a groaner...

[http://haibaniki.rubychan.de/wiki/FHD_Remix Back to FHD Remix main directory]

Previous: [[FHD Remix Chapter 33]]: Jack and Devon Campbell

== Chapter 34: Retreat! ==

[Some [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9Ap71XRu_8g dialogue] is from the movie ''Doom'' (Universal 2005), the best video-game movie the author has seen come out of Hollywood. ''Advent Children'' (SquareEnix/Sony EMI 2005), the best video-game movie the author has ''ever'' seen, did not come out of Hollywood!]

''Doom 3'' Stone Tablets briefing: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y-x877qjAtY

"''What?''" Betruger growls, "Osteune, you better be telling me the ''truth.''"

[''Doom 3'' twenty-first stage]

"Yes, master," the bony revenant growls from Central Administration, "Like many others, Elliot Swann's body burned away from delta radiation when you tried to introduce a spirit into it. I see pieces of a Type 23 128bit array processor scattered throughout the room. They are ''scratched,'' master."

[''Doom 3'' final stage]

The Sarge echos over his talking box, <''She'' destroyed it,> on a channel only Betruger can hear, <Her PDA is ''hacked'' so that she can download other PDAs' entire firmware, software, and data load into her own wholesale. After this, hers can emulate any of the downloaded PDAs that she needs.>

<Speaking of which,> Betruger snorts, <Where in hell is ''mine?''>

 Erebus says.

Erebus is enormous, four ''stories'' tall, he operates the main hellgate portal, which is located below the Artifact Dig of Site 3. The only way to access it is by the local spawn teleporters. The reactor which powers the portal is grafted onto his back, and provides enough power to keep it open continuously. In this form he is called the ''Cyberdemon,'' and is armed with a belt-fed rocket launcher built into his right arm. The portal itself is horizontally oriented so that the reinforcements coming in have to climb out of it. Above it is a demon-constructed heavy levitation lift, which is a glowing red fleshy construct. The enormous enclosed chamber is lined with local teleportation equipment, apparently constructed of bone and flesh. The chamber is so large and well lit that it has an "outdoors" feel, even though it is still smaller than a typical stadium.

<Master,> Osteune continues, 

<Oh, never mind it,> Betruger sighs, <The thermal pulse we observed four hours ago is consistent with their bodies burning up from delta radiation. I'm sending you to Delta Sector 2. I've had a couple of imps disappear near the prototype.>

<Master,> Osteune says, 

"''Never mind it,''" Betruger growls, "Without anyone to wield it, the Soul Cube is harmless."

Osteune gets teleported to Sector 2, where he meets his fate (at least for this host) at the hands of Ian McCormick the moment he appears. Osteune never had the chance to explain that Tatakai's PDA and weapons were missing as well.

Erebus reports, "The preparations for jumping the fleet are on schedule."

[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E8MYB_CNgqM ''Doom 3'' twenty-third stage]

Sarge, in the coolant control room of Central Processing, notes that an "Elliot Swann" has opened the transfer chamber between the Server Banks and Central Processing. Nothing on motion sensors. Suddenly a talking box cries, <Contact!> and disappears. He watches host vitals start dropping off at an alarming rate. Immediately he signals Betruger.

"Sarge here," he growls.

< I'm ''busy,''> Betruger snorts, but before he can offer any further verbal abuse, Sarge utters the last two words he wants to hear.

"She's alive."

Sarge takes the main elevator down to the coolant unit. He then sets off charges to destroy the main lift between Site 3 and Central Processing, leaving intact a tiny maintenance lift he can't reach, but he can block the path to. Inside the host, Kelly's soul is very afraid. To the mighty spirit ''Saboath,'' which has him firmly subdued, the host is expendable. Kelly, however, has no where else to go. Sarge, the integrated being, has cut off his only retreat. The door opens to the cooling unit and Sarge rolls out. He is suspicious and looks about, even though he knows there is action in the armory on the other side of Secure Service Tunnel 2.

Tatakai's voice reverberates from the walls, her tone like that of a smart FNG, "Greenborough reporting to Secure Service Tunnel 1 as ordered, Master Sargeant."

"Welcome to the Mess Hall!" Sarge roars, "Where are you, ''Tatakai?''"

She asks, almost plaintively, "Are you going to shoot me?"

Sarge scans about, a two-count charge on Campbell's BFG, now mounted on his shoulder, "Yeah, I was thinking about it."

Tatakai asks, almost playfully, "What you got left?"

Sarge answers, "Half a clip, you?"

"I've got one round."

The Sarge spots her flying above the coolant unit and charges his weapon. As soon as the blast releases, Tatakai shoots the projectile chip inside it with her pistol. The weak blast rattles the Sarge, but does little damage. Tatakai's blast comes down from straight overhead as the grey-winged angel tucks into a quick dive. The Sarge is quick to roll away from the impact point, and the shot barely misses him.

Shaking off the scratch-induced damage to his perception and finding her again as she lands behind him, he growls, "Plainly not enough."

Tatakai points at him, or rather past him, "Apologies, I forgot to mention my husband."

Jack runs into the room, throwing the Soul Cube at him over hand, holding a shotgun in his other hand.

The impact of the Soul Cube upends the Sarge, and he lands flat on his back, tracks sticking up in the air. The Soul Cube, its course barely disturbed by the impact, flies past to a halt near Tatakai, its blades wrecked from the attack.

The Sarge rapidly rights himself just in time to see Jack literally ''flying'' at him, his wings even larger than Tatakai's; they are a mottled ruddy color, as though desert camoflage for Mars itself.

BOOM! After blasting Sarge in the head, he emerges visible to an excitedly hopping Tatakai, shaking the smart off his hand, from having smacked Sarge in the face, losing his shotgun in the process.

The Sarge lets out an anguished scream, still upright on his tracks. He loses his grip on Jack's BFG as he flails about, and the empty weapon lands with a crack on his left track, spilling onto the ground. The Sarge rapidly expires and starts burning away, leaving his metallic chassis and tracks behind.

Tatakai treats Jack's hand with a medkit before returning to the smouldering wreck of the Sarge, in front of which lies Jack's BFG and shotgun.

"What an ''impact!''" Jack exclaims, examining his repaired hand, "How the heck did you guys knock him over?"

"It was ''easy!,''" cheers the Soul Cube, hovering next to Tatakai.

Tatakai replays on her PDA, a portion of the UAC introductory video on the Soul Cube, "The object cannot be weighed, and in all tests, we have been unable to determine its mass."

"One hundred, forty four thousand people," it says.

"It's actual mass is about eight thousand ''tonnes,''" Tatakai drawls dramatically.

"So, it was easy!" the Soul Cube playfully confirms.

--------

[''Doom 3'' final stage]

"Erebus, start wrapping it up!" Betruger snorts.

"''Retreat?''" The cyberdemon gasps, "Maledict, did I hear you right?"

"Yes, you heard me right, Erebus," the former scientist scowls, "Saboath is down, and you have incoming."

"Greenborough?" Erebus asks with a snort.

"''Greenborough'' is no more," Betruger answers without cheer.

Erebus quickly protests, "Then what could possibly-?"

"Jack ''and'' Devon ''Campbell,''" Betruger snarls, "They declared their marriage before killing Sarge and now ''both'' have wings. I don't know how she transformed him, but she did. We are ''retreating.''"

--------

[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cY0-szoG7wo ''Doom 3'' twenty-fourth stage] (advance to 6min)

Tatakai and Jack drop out of the ceiling into the preservation room at Site 3. They see the four tablets on stands lining the far wall. Behind them, the wall, as well as the ceiling, have been transformed into the enemy's fleshy growth.

"That is just ''gross,''" Jack snorts at the growth.

"What the ''heck?''" Tatakai gasps as she walks up to the third tablet. She touches it softly, "I can even ''feel'' them!"

The angry, electric growl of a spawn teleporter ... two of them ... three in different corners of the room.

Jack readies his shotgun for the onslaught.

"Maggots to waste our ammo," Tatakai groans as she pulls out her pistol. A round in each and they all fall. Jack is still getting used to just how much ''scratch,'' the angel poison, adds to their effectiveness.

Tatakai finds herself standing in the middle of a huge orange glowing pentagram as she reloads her pistol. "Crap!" she cries as she jumps out of the way, inches from being squashed by a Hellknight as he emerges from the teleport spawn. Her pistol magazine clatters across the floor.

The Hellknight is about to crush her head beneath his huge foot when Jack fires his shotgun at the eleven foot tall monster's head. He grabs at his own head, trying to contain the bleeding and protect it from further damage while blindly stomping around, trying to squash Tatakai. He lets loose a swing at Jack, but misses. Tatakai shoots the Hell Knight in the head with the one round in her pistol, then grabs the clip and loads it, closing the weapon's slide.

Tatakai regains her feet and stands, both hands on her pistol. She taps two rounds into the beast's neck while Jack dances around, trying to taunt it into letting go of its cranium.

"Fellas?" she asks.

"We are not charged enough," The Soul Cube answers.

Jack dances around the beast, and finally it takes a swing with the wrong arm, exposing its head to Tatakai's sights. Three more rounds, and the monster collapses.

"I hope we don't have any further interruptions," Tatakai grumbles, then points again at the third tablet.

"So their hero had wings," Jack says, not seeing any significance to the picture.

"That's not what ''UAC'' thinks," Tatakai says, "Look!"

Jack looks at the screen on her PDA, and through its camera, Grimm Rieper, the hero of the war on Mars engraved into the stone, does ''not'' have wings.

Tatakai plays back a video file on the tablets, "The second and third tablets illustrate an epic story: a story of war, and how, faced with impossible odds, the ultimate sacrifice of an entire race to achieve victory." The wings are not visible in this official UAC video file.

"They are in scratch," The Soul Cube explains, "You must know the concept of how to use your wing poison to send and receive messages in ''secret.''"

"Scratched messages ''fade'' after a few weeks," Tatakai says, "This stone tablet is over ''four thousand'' years old!"

"And we weigh eight thousand tonnes," the Soul Cube teases, "I'm sure you'll get over it."

Tatakai has to laugh.

"What? You have the Soul Cube just like in the carvings," Tatakai turns to see Dr. Pierce Rogers emerging from his office."

"You're ''alive?''" she gasps.

"If I'm correct, that cube is the only chance to stop this. No time to explain now. You need to get to the caverns ''quickly,''" the elderly gentleman explains, beckoning them into his office. "Take my PDA," he points, "It's right there on the desk."

Tatakai picks it up and examines it, handing it to Jack for a look-see.

"It's got security codes for the area, and my research log's on it. It'll help," he sighs.

"You ''have'' to come with us," Jack says, "The safest place is at our backs, especially once we close the portal and cut off the enemy's retreat."

"I can't go with you. I need to finish my work here, good luck," he says, turning to his console.

"Uncle Pierce," Jack reads quietly, "Mom says were going to get to see you next month. I can't wait. You've been away so long. I hope your project is still going well. I know you can't tell me anything about it, but your work always sounds so exciting and mysterious. Working on Mars must really be cool."

Jack hands Tatakai the archeologist's PDA, and she continues to read the most recent message from his nephew Timmy, "Thanks for sending me the video games for my birthday. Have you tried these? The new Quake-43 game blows my mind. It is even better than Super Turbo Turkey Puncher. I haven't played that since I got these new ones from you," Tatakai sobs, "P.S.: Mom says hi."

"I'm so close to discovering ''everything,'' I can't leave," the good doctor sighs, "I'm locking the door after you leave, good luck."

Jack and Tatakai move far enough away from the door to let it close. Tatakai gives a quiet nod to the Soul Cube, then say to him, "Your door is no protection." Jack holds his ears.

The Soul Cube passes through the door with a rending screech, leaving a diamond shaped hole. The door motor gets stuck as it tries to open for it. The Soul Cube wedges itself into the gap and forces the door open against the flowered hole, bending the frame and snapping the metal edges of its own hole. This act has rendered the door permanently open.

"Locking what door?" Tatakai asks.

"Why is the Soul Cube our only chance to stop this?" Jack asks, pointing at the second tablet, "Is it because you need this sort of firepower when they get this big?"

"A complete tablet weighs, what? Three hundred kilos?" Tatakai asks.

Jack shows him a video, rather grainy and unstable, of the Hell Knight they just defeated, standing taller than each of the tablets, "What if one of those knocked on your door?"

"I'll just have to take my chances," he says, "I ''must'' finish this research."

"Come on, let's go," Jack says.

"What's his name?" Tatakai asks, pointing at his scan of the third tablet, at the hero of the ancients.

"I'm ''very'' close to finding out," Dr. Rogers sighs.

"We know," Jack says.

"We also know ''when'' their war was, we know the basics of how these creatures are bred and controlled, the ''mass'' of the Soul Cube. Wouldn't you rather be where the Soul Cube is, that's how we learned?" Tatakai says.

"He can't hear us," the Soul Cube sighs, "Our voice is scratched, only ''featherwings'' can hear."

"Humans can hear scratch if they ''believe'' in us," Tatakai says, "It's caused problems for our Brotherhood."

"Ahem, who are you talking to?" asks Pierce

"Them," she smiles. Turning to the Soul Cube, she says, "He's not ''blind.'' Gillie, come out please, show him your eyes."

The Soul Cube opens its eyes in Gillie's grey color, the ancient historian in the Soul Cube and the modern archeologist stare at each other: the past looking into the future, and the future lookiing into the past.

"Linda, Ruby?" Tatakai asks.

The Soul Cube blinks and its eyes are green. It's small eyes open light blue. The smaller eyes scrinch into a smile and the Soul Cube wobbles a little bit.

"The kids ''love'' to sing," Tatakai says with some tears.

"That's ''extraordinary!''" the archeologist gasps, "Is this all ''normal'' for you?"

The Soul Cube nods.

"I can't believe I never thought of it before," he says as he gingerly puts his hands on the side of the Soul Cube, feeling its familiar warmth, a bizarre property: the surface temperature was an average of 37.1 degrees Centigrade and never varied. "It was never as though I lifted or moved it," he sighs, "It was ''allowing'' me to move it. Always, it felt like a slight delay. I thought it was some sort of fluid inside, but all the time ... it was ''deciding'' to move with my hands." From the look of the eyes, he can tell that Ruby is laughing. "What is its mass, if you truly know?"

"Eight thousand tonnes," Tatakai whispers, "It told me."

"I'd take it at its word," Jack says, flexing his right hand, remembering his ''own'' impact with the Sarge.

"Can you keep an ''angel's'' secret," Tatakai whispers.

They proceed outside to look at the tablets. The electric growl and zapping of an incoming spawn sounds.

"Arch-Vile," Tatakai calls it, shouldering her rocket launcher. Jack pulls out his shotgun.

Tatakai hits the Arch-Vile in the head just as he appears. The anorexic looking creature falls over backwards, hands aglow with small flames.

The imp he summoned has no chance to even perceive its arrival before Jack blasts her.

Before the Soul Cube had three lights lit orange. Now all five are lit green. It deploys its blades and does its happy dance.

"Cover us, fellas," Tatakai pants as she holsters her rocket launcher on her back. Then she points at the third tablet and says, "Grimm Rieper is his name. You can't see them in the carving, but he has wings like mine."

Tatakai deploys her wings.

Pierce Rogers passes out.

Jack, having caught him before he hit the concrete floor, sighs, "I guess he has no objections ''now.''"

Next: [[FHD Remix Chapter 35]]: Recon Zulu

[http://haibaniki.rubychan.de/wiki/FHD_Remix Back to FHD Remix main directory]

FHD Remix Chapter 43

2013-08-10T06:07:15Z

Fhd remix: Couldn't get anchor template to work, nor an html code with id; to see where #hurt is supposed to go if you want to fix it, see page history

[http://haibaniki.rubychan.de/wiki/FHD_Remix Back to FHD Remix main directory]

Previous: [[FHD Remix Chapter 42]]: Tears For The Toga

== Chapter 43: Homes for the Toga; Growing in the Garden ==

[In this chapter is buried a homage to Aliens, the 1986 Twentieth Century Fox movie written and directed by James Cameron based on the 1979 original Alien directed by Ridley Scott, the protagonist played by Sigourney Weaver; possibly the most successful piece of fan-fiction ever.]

Menmo, Yaiba, Shimoni, Joe and Tsunami are gathered around the table in East Tower's guest room at Old Home. Leroy stands behind Tatakai. The meal is half bakery take-out, and half home cooking by Yaiba. Jack and Nancy, the ravens, stand on the piano.

"We have twenty-two new Toga," Tatakai says, "They emerged in the wall early this morning."

"Really?" Tsunami squeals, "Since no one else is allowed in the wall, you might have to get them to clean up their own cocoons."

Tatakai smiles at her. Tsunami's probably smart enough to realize the truth, but definitely smart enough to realize, that even if her perception was accurate, the issue she brought up is trivial.

"Wow," Shimoni says, "Can they do trade?"

"No," Tatakai says, "Not until we re-establish contact with Toga outside so they can get lost to the enemy among them. I believe their appearance corresponds with a specific enemy deployment, and if the enemy finds that correlation, they would be slaughtered immediately."

"What if there are no Toga outside?" Shimoni asks.

Tatakai looks over her shoulder at Leroy.

Leroy first closes his eyes, signs what he learned from the Toga, the name of the Saviour, then opens them. They are still their natural green color. "At last knowledge two weeks ago," he says at last, "Three hundred, seventy Toga were thought to be alive by our enemy, who also believe that all seven of the Toga who participated in the Battle of Sangatsu are dead."

"The incursion two months ago at the Great Gate?" Joe asks.

Leroy nods.

Jack caws, and Tatakai looks at him as he fumbles with his toes.

Tatakai turns back to them and says, "Jack says four hundred, twenty-two."

That surprised everyone at the table. Even Nancy gazes at him in wonder.

Tsunami stands and says to the raven who wasn't using his toes, "He's right, isn't he?" She flaps her own right wing, "Is that how many Toga are really left outside?"

Nancy does the same. Right then and there, Jack starts teaching Nancy raven-foot Toganese. She'll pick it up much slower than Tatakai did.

"Why the discrepancy?" Joe asks.

"Like us Haibane," Tatakai says, "The Toga do not reproduce, but emerge from previous lives in a new form as Toga. In this way, seventy-four Toga have emerged since the incursion at the Great Gate and have not been registered with the enemy's trade association."

"Twenty-two inside the wall, and fifty-two outside?" Tsunami asks.

"That would be correct, Tsunami," Tatakai confirms.

"Unfortunately," Joe says, "That means of course that the enemy has been at least trying to keep count, probably even trying to control them all these years. We've been respectful of their wish to stay anonymous, and have made no attempt, at least on any record I've seen, to tell one from another."

"The vendors can as a matter of course," Tatakai says, "but those vendors can't ''really'' tell if it is the same Toga delivering their type of merchandise. They only suspect that is the case. The Toga prisoners were surprised to observe me cry for their newborns. The vendors, some of them at least, are really worried about the fate of the Toga for their own sakes. I think the Toga would be very surprised."

Shimoni is staring at her fingernails, realizing that her concern for the Toga related to Glie. It never occurred to her that the Toga deserve consideration in their own right.

"But how do we get out of this mess?" Joe asks, "I mean, will our sentient kinds ever escape this bleak existence and you know, have a ''future?''"

"We can't," Menmo says softly but very insistently, "Our only option is to hang on until the Saviour returns, even if it is generation after generation in the future of children too far removed to remember us. Even if humanity dies out and all that remains are a couple dozen haibane to pick among the ruins. We ''must'' endure until the Saviour's return."

They are silent for a time.

"Tatakai," Tsunami sighs, "If you can't tell one Toga from another, you will have to keep all of them in the tower. Twenty-eight Toga. If you let out the twenty-two who you ''think'' are the newborns, how do you know the traitors won't be among them?"

She gets quite a few amazed looks. Tsunami's physical age is only eight years!!

"I have gotten to know the six elders," Tatakai says, "and..." Tatakai dangles on Tsunami's point. "Good thinking, Tsunami," she says, "even today they could..." she trails off.

"Aw, crud," Shimoni says, "We can't house twenty-nine people in there. The temple has no roof, only eight rooms and even we could, it would be so unfair to the newborns to imprison them. They haven't done anything wrong."

Jack is very sad. He has a history with them as Ticks. He knows that they helped him deliver the power cells to the ''Beaver Butch,'' remembers how they provided him with the ropes from their silk to get the Conestoga wire over the wall. He knows that Erebus discovered their treachery and sent them on an abeyance mission, predicting that Tatakai would fry them on his behalf.

"The traitors can't get past me," Tatakai says, "I won't be able to tell one Toga from another, but I ''can'' tell a newborn from an elder."

Shimoni smiles, "That's good. Next, we must accommodate them in the North Nest. We have two livable suites left in the East Tower, at two each means we'll need to accommodate eighteen in the North Nest. Yaiba and Tatakai will have to clear their spare rooms. That leaves twenty-two, counting Yurushi, who's already living with me, among five houses. Four and five to a house will be quite a squeeze. I'll get Kurai to train a few for construction, and we should be able to complete two, perhaps three more houses before the white stuff arrives."

"Can she handle it?" Yaiba asks, "I mean, you're better at it-"

"I'm too busy saving the power grid so we don't freeze to death," Shimoni says, "We are going to be out of heating fuel by the winter and most of what we got left has to go into," she points out the window at the mustard colored crane she just acquired, "''that.''"

"It's getting pretty tight around Glie, isn't it?" Joe asks.

"Affirmative," Tsunami says with a salute.

"That fire displaced over a hundred people," Shimoni winces, then chuckles, "A steadily shrinking population and we still have a housing crunch. It's not the first one I've dealt with."

"What?" Joe gasps, "This is the only one Glie's had in my memory."

"She's probably thinking of the red planet," Tatakai says, "her first life."

"Probably," Shimoni says, "I don't remember red, though. Just tasteless metal boxes with sparse furnishings and no windows, built by sun-yellow mechanical arms that still amaze me whenever I see them in my dreams." With a smile she says, "I would punch into a glowing picture, ''build one hundred,'' go to bed, wake up the next morning and they'd have them stacked up neatly in the storage area. One big cube of boring steel boxes."

"Come on," Yaiba whines, "It's not like ''these'' houses are very exciting!"

"I know," Shimoni says with a laugh, "These boxes had the same floor plan."

Everybody's laughing in moments.

--------

Yurushi and Kurai hear a ping as the drill bit penetrates the pipe. Yurushi continues to pedal the contraption as Kurai pulls the old pipe away from the drill bit sticking out of the side of the bicycle wheel and sets it to drill another hole.

Helen hammers together the squat water tower that will be topped by the canvas lined steel tank they ordered from Hubert the welder. The Young Feather they brought along for the walk, ten years in apparent age, started jumping up and down in familiarity, flapping his recently Saviour-bleached wings excitedly as he repeated over and over again that welding is something he does every night in his dreams. Now Glie has ''two'' people who can fuse two pieces of metal.

"Shimoni will be able to fill this thing up in like three ''seconds,''" Helen affirms, "It'll save her ''so'' much time. Oops," Helen stoops to pick up the plain black logbook Tatakai had given her. Instead of the cover, the first page inside, a stout card, has her name 「ヘレナ」 in the traditional katakana, and the respected ''Haibane Renmei'' seal. Helen clutches it with a smile at her new winged friends, feeling privileged to be among them.

On their break later, she jokes, "I'm in charge."

Her two friends look at each other, then laugh. It is obvious she's last on the pecking order in Old Home, youngest hireling of the Haibane, she might be the lowest ranking individual in all of Glie.

"''Really,''" she says softly, a tone of admiration, "until he comes back."

"Like, how can you say that?" Kurai asks, confused.

"Yesu," Helen says happily, "says that if you want rank and privilege. ''To be the great, you must become a slave. The greatest will be the servant of all,''" she sighs. "To show he meant it, he had me sit in his throne, and had me hold still while he washed my feet. It was embarrassing at first."

"When was that?" Yurushi asks.

"When I was ''dead,''" she insists, "I was dressing for school when I noticed the house next door was on fire, My mom had just come to check on me when it collapsed. A piece of wood came through the window and landed on me, right on my chest. I couldn't breathe and it lit me on fire. It hurt so much and for so long, but the worst part was hearing my mother screaming. There was nothing she could do."

"How did you survive ''that?''" he asks.

"I didn't," Helen says, "I died and was welcomed into a bright place by Yesu, the ''Saviour,''" she smiles at the memory. "He said I was going to go back soon, that the light he gave to Glie would bring me back. The hard part was after I insisted I wash his feet, I saw he had scars from where he had been nailed to his cross. I asked about them and he explained, ''All are born impure and destined to be burned in the fire forever.'' I cried in reply, ''How can I be saved then? How can anybody escape the fire?'' He answers, ''One holy and pure must be killed and given to the fire as the punishment for all.'' I was crying, and I asked who it would be. He says, ''It was me.'' I thanked him over and over again until he asked. ''Will you take up your cross and follow me?'' So grateful, I agreed immediately, and he took my hands. He promises, ''I will be with you always until the end of the earth,'' and I could feel," she winces, "the nails tearing through my wrists and feet, closed my eyes and screamed, it hurt worse than the fire, but only for a moment. I knew the pain of the fire would be forever, but the more intense pain of the Saviour is only for a moment. When I opened my eyes, I was naked on the grass in front of my home, alive again." With a smile, she finishes, "My mother can tell you the rest."

--------

As the sun nears the horizon in the west, Shimoni turns from the windmill dynamo she's working on, pulls the agonizing copper sliver from under one of her fingernails, and silently thanks God for Yaiba and her light. She looks about, wondering where she might-

"What is ''that?''" she gasps as she sees the three metre tall water tower at the far edge of the garden right at the top of the gentle hill on the northern edge. She notices that Kurai, Yurushi and Helen, the displaced human girl, are trying to pull a canvas bag over top of the two metre steel frame structure sitting on top of the squat wooden platform. It is obvious that it is far too small to go around it. As she walks along the edge of the garden, too distracted to even remember her sore finger, she realizes that they are trying to turn it inside out into the structure, not cover the structure with it. That's when she realizes, several aisles of the garden have pipes held a few inches above the ground on forked sticks. The irrigation system is nowhere near complete obviously, but she recognizes what it is as the kids finally get the canvas bladder into the steel frame. Then she sees something that makes her halt so hard that she almost falls over.

The wings of Kurai and Yurushi have turned white.

Next: [[FHD Remix Chapter 44]]: Battle of the Great Gate

[http://haibaniki.rubychan.de/wiki/FHD_Remix Back to FHD Remix main directory]

Template:Documentation

2013-08-10T05:53:09Z

Fhd remix: Stubby documentation page; template currently broke

The template was simply cut-and-pasted from the main Wikipedia source by a total noob ([[User:Fhd remix|Fhd remix]] 07:53, 10 August 2013 (CEST)) and does not currently work, almost certainly because its reference templates are missing or because I screwed it up somehow. If you know more about template coding, you're welcome to fix it.

Template:Anchor

2013-08-10T05:44:34Z

Fhd remix: Copied anchor template from main Wikipedia

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{{Documentation}}

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FHD Remix Chapter 43

2013-08-10T05:39:16Z

Fhd remix: /* Chapter 43: Homes for the Toga; Growing in the Garden */ need anchor link for GlieBlock

[http://haibaniki.rubychan.de/wiki/FHD_Remix Back to FHD Remix main directory]

Previous: [[FHD Remix Chapter 42]]: Tears For The Toga

== Chapter 43: Homes for the Toga; Growing in the Garden ==

[In this chapter is buried a homage to Aliens, the 1986 Twentieth Century Fox movie written and directed by James Cameron based on the 1979 original Alien directed by Ridley Scott, the protagonist played by Sigourney Weaver; possibly the most successful piece of fan-fiction ever.]

Menmo, Yaiba, Shimoni, Joe and Tsunami are gathered around the table in East Tower's guest room at Old Home. Leroy stands behind Tatakai. The meal is half bakery take-out, and half home cooking by Yaiba. Jack and Nancy, the ravens, stand on the piano.

"We have twenty-two new Toga," Tatakai says, "They emerged in the wall early this morning."

"Really?" Tsunami squeals, "Since no one else is allowed in the wall, you might have to get them to clean up their own cocoons."

Tatakai smiles at her. Tsunami's probably smart enough to realize the truth, but definitely smart enough to realize, that even if her perception was accurate, the issue she brought up is trivial.

"Wow," Shimoni says, "Can they do trade?"

"No," Tatakai says, "Not until we re-establish contact with Toga outside so they can get lost to the enemy among them. I believe their appearance corresponds with a specific enemy deployment, and if the enemy finds that correlation, they would be slaughtered immediately."

"What if there are no Toga outside?" Shimoni asks.

Tatakai looks over her shoulder at Leroy.

Leroy first closes his eyes, signs what he learned from the Toga, the name of the Saviour, then opens them. They are still their natural green color. "At last knowledge two weeks ago," he says at last, "Three hundred, seventy Toga were thought to be alive by our enemy, who also believe that all seven of the Toga who participated in the Battle of Sangatsu are dead."

"The incursion two months ago at the Great Gate?" Joe asks.

Leroy nods.

Jack caws, and Tatakai looks at him as he fumbles with his toes.

Tatakai turns back to them and says, "Jack says four hundred, twenty-two."

That surprised everyone at the table. Even Nancy gazes at him in wonder.

Tsunami stands and says to the raven who wasn't using his toes, "He's right, isn't he?" She flaps her own right wing, "Is that how many Toga are really left outside?"

Nancy does the same. Right then and there, Jack starts teaching Nancy raven-foot Toganese. She'll pick it up much slower than Tatakai did.

"Why the discrepancy?" Joe asks.

"Like us Haibane," Tatakai says, "The Toga do not reproduce, but emerge from previous lives in a new form as Toga. In this way, seventy-four Toga have emerged since the incursion at the Great Gate and have not been registered with the enemy's trade association."

"Twenty-two inside the wall, and fifty-two outside?" Tsunami asks.

"That would be correct, Tsunami," Tatakai confirms.

"Unfortunately," Joe says, "That means of course that the enemy has been at least trying to keep count, probably even trying to control them all these years. We've been respectful of their wish to stay anonymous, and have made no attempt, at least on any record I've seen, to tell one from another."

"The vendors can as a matter of course," Tatakai says, "but those vendors can't ''really'' tell if it is the same Toga delivering their type of merchandise. They only suspect that is the case. The Toga prisoners were surprised to observe me cry for their newborns. The vendors, some of them at least, are really worried about the fate of the Toga for their own sakes. I think the Toga would be very surprised."

Shimoni is staring at her fingernails, realizing that her concern for the Toga related to Glie. It never occurred to her that the Toga deserve consideration in their own right.

"But how do we get out of this mess?" Joe asks, "I mean, will our sentient kinds ever escape this bleak existence and you know, have a ''future?''"

"We can't," Menmo says softly but very insistently, "Our only option is to hang on until the Saviour returns, even if it is generation after generation in the future of children too far removed to remember us. Even if humanity dies out and all that remains are a couple dozen haibane to pick among the ruins. We ''must'' endure until the Saviour's return."

They are silent for a time.

"Tatakai," Tsunami sighs, "If you can't tell one Toga from another, you will have to keep all of them in the tower. Twenty-eight Toga. If you let out the twenty-two who you ''think'' are the newborns, how do you know the traitors won't be among them?"

She gets quite a few amazed looks. Tsunami's physical age is only eight years!!

"I have gotten to know the six elders," Tatakai says, "and..." Tatakai dangles on Tsunami's point. "Good thinking, Tsunami," she says, "even today they could..." she trails off.

"Aw, crud," Shimoni says, "We can't house twenty-nine people in there. The temple has no roof, only eight rooms and even we could, it would be so unfair to the newborns to imprison them. They haven't done anything wrong."

Jack is very sad. He has a history with them as Ticks. He knows that they helped him deliver the power cells to the ''Beaver Butch,'' remembers how they provided him with the ropes from their silk to get the Conestoga wire over the wall. He knows that Erebus discovered their treachery and sent them on an abeyance mission, predicting that Tatakai would fry them on his behalf.

"The traitors can't get past me," Tatakai says, "I won't be able to tell one Toga from another, but I ''can'' tell a newborn from an elder."

Shimoni smiles, "That's good. Next, we must accommodate them in the North Nest. We have two livable suites left in the East Tower, at two each means we'll need to accommodate eighteen in the North Nest. Yaiba and Tatakai will have to clear their spare rooms. That leaves twenty-two, counting Yurushi, who's already living with me, among five houses. Four and five to a house will be quite a squeeze. I'll get Kurai to train a few for construction, and we should be able to complete two, perhaps three more houses before the white stuff arrives."

"Can she handle it?" Yaiba asks, "I mean, you're better at it-"

"I'm too busy saving the power grid so we don't freeze to death," Shimoni says, "We are going to be out of heating fuel by the winter and most of what we got left has to go into," she points out the window at the mustard colored crane she just acquired, "''that.''"

"It's getting pretty tight around Glie, isn't it?" Joe asks.

"Affirmative," Tsunami says with a salute.

"That fire displaced over a hundred people," Shimoni winces, then chuckles, "A steadily shrinking population and we still have a housing crunch. It's not the first one I've dealt with."

"What?" Joe gasps, "This is the only one Glie's had in my memory."

"She's probably thinking of the red planet," Tatakai says, "her first life."

"Probably," Shimoni says, "I don't remember red, though. Just tasteless metal boxes with sparse furnishings and no windows, built by sun-yellow mechanical arms that still amaze me whenever I see them in my dreams." With a smile she says, "I would punch into a glowing picture, ''build one hundred,'' go to bed, wake up the next morning and they'd have them stacked up neatly in the storage area. One big cube of boring steel boxes."

"Come on," Yaiba whines, "It's not like ''these'' houses are very exciting!"

"I know," Shimoni says with a laugh, "These boxes had the same floor plan."

Everybody's laughing in moments.

--------

Yurushi and Kurai hear a ping as the drill bit penetrates the pipe. Yurushi continues to pedal the contraption as Kurai pulls the old pipe away from the drill bit sticking out of the side of the bicycle wheel and sets it to drill another hole.

Helen hammers together the squat water tower that will be topped by the canvas lined steel tank they ordered from Hubert the welder. The Young Feather they brought along for the walk, ten years in apparent age, started jumping up and down in familiarity, flapping his recently Saviour-bleached wings excitedly as he repeated over and over again that welding is something he does every night in his dreams. Now Glie has ''two'' people who can fuse two pieces of metal.

"Shimoni will be able to fill this thing up in like three ''seconds,''" Helen affirms, "It'll save her ''so'' much time. Oops," Helen stoops to pick up the plain black logbook Tatakai had given her. Instead of the cover, the first page inside, a stout card, has her name 「ヘレナ」 in the traditional katakana, and the respected ''Haibane Renmei'' seal. Helen clutches it with a smile at her new winged friends, feeling privileged to be among them.

On their break later, she jokes, "I'm in charge."

Her two friends look at each other, then laugh. It is obvious she's last on the pecking order in Old Home, youngest hireling of the Haibane, she might be the lowest ranking individual in all of Glie.

"''Really,''" she says softly, a tone of admiration, "until he comes back."

"Like, how can you say that?" Kurai asks, confused.

"Yesu," Helen says happily, "says that if you want rank and privilege. ''To be the great, you must become a slave. The greatest will be the servant of all,''" she sighs. "To show he meant it, he had me sit in his throne, and had me hold still while he washed my feet. It was embarrassing at first."

"When was that?" Yurushi asks.

"When I was ''dead,''" she insists, "I was dressing for school when I noticed the house next door was on fire, My mom had just come to check on me when it collapsed. A piece of wood came through the window and landed on me, right on my chest. I couldn't breathe and it lit me on fire. It hurt so much and for so long, but the worst part was hearing my mother screaming. There was nothing she could do."

"How did you survive ''that?''" he asks.

{{anchor|hurts}}
"I didn't," Helen says, "I died and was welcomed into a bright place by Yesu, the ''Saviour,''" she smiles at the memory. "He said I was going to go back soon, that the light he gave to Glie would bring me back. The hard part was after I insisted I wash his feet, I saw he had scars from where he had been nailed to his cross. I asked about them and he explained, ''All are born impure and destined to be burned in the fire forever.'' I cried in reply, ''How can I be saved then? How can anybody escape the fire?'' He answers, ''One holy and pure must be killed and given to the fire as the punishment for all.'' I was crying, and I asked who it would be. He says, ''It was me.'' I thanked him over and over again until he asked. ''Will you take up your cross and follow me?'' So grateful, I agreed immediately, and he took my hands. He promises, ''I will be with you always until the end of the earth,'' and I could feel," she winces, "the nails tearing through my wrists and feet, closed my eyes and screamed, it hurt worse than the fire, but only for a moment. I knew the pain of the fire would be forever, but the more intense pain of the Saviour is only for a moment. When I opened my eyes, I was naked on the grass in front of my home, alive again." With a smile, she finishes, "My mother can tell you the rest."

--------

As the sun nears the horizon in the west, Shimoni turns from the windmill dynamo she's working on, pulls the agonizing copper sliver from under one of her fingernails, and silently thanks God for Yaiba and her light. She looks about, wondering where she might-

"What is ''that?''" she gasps as she sees the three metre tall water tower at the far edge of the garden right at the top of the gentle hill on the northern edge. She notices that Kurai, Yurushi and Helen, the displaced human girl, are trying to pull a canvas bag over top of the two metre steel frame structure sitting on top of the squat wooden platform. It is obvious that it is far too small to go around it. As she walks along the edge of the garden, too distracted to even remember her sore finger, she realizes that they are trying to turn it inside out into the structure, not cover the structure with it. That's when she realizes, several aisles of the garden have pipes held a few inches above the ground on forked sticks. The irrigation system is nowhere near complete obviously, but she recognizes what it is as the kids finally get the canvas bladder into the steel frame. Then she sees something that makes her halt so hard that she almost falls over.

The wings of Kurai and Yurushi have turned white.

Next: [[FHD Remix Chapter 44]]: Battle of the Great Gate

[http://haibaniki.rubychan.de/wiki/FHD_Remix Back to FHD Remix main directory]

Talk:FHD Remix Chapter 32

2012-05-24T18:20:37Z

Fhd remix: Saboath is the Correct Name

I have the Doom 3 events in the wrong order: in the actual game, the whole Arch-vile mess happens after you meet Swann. Is it important enough to fix? [[User:Fhd remix|Fhd remix]] 02:56, 8 March 2010 (CET)

== Saboath is the Correct Name ==

I noticed long after I wrote this story and had it online here, that I had somehow misread the name of Sabaoth, the creature in ''Doom 3'' that Sargeant Kelly turns into and rendered it as Saboath throughout the entire ''FHD Remix'' trilogy. I have, just now, discovered that "Sabaoth" (the original spelling) actually does occur in the Bible, although you have to look at a ''textus receptus'' translation (i.e.: King James Version) and even then, it sometimes comes out as "Lord of hosts" instead of "Lord of sabaoth". Sabaoth could be some sort of Greek or Aramaic tweak of the Hebrew word Shabat (which is tweaked directly into English as Sabbath, the day of rest.) In both verses in which it occurs, Romans 9:29 "Lord of Sabaoth" and James 5:4 "Lord of sabaoth" (lower case), it is obviously referring to Yahweh, the Father. Romans 9:29 is quoting Isaiah 1:9, which renders "LORD of hosts" (capitalized LORD representing an occurrence of the original Hebrew for Yahweh.) No doubt remains, the Biblical "Sabaoth" obviously does not refer to an evil spirit, while this name does in ''Doom 3''
 
I have now come to believe that "Saboath" is not in error, but Storyvoice (who guides my writing) introduced this distinction deliberately to protect the biblical name "Sabaoth".
[[User:Fhd remix|Fhd remix]] 20:20, 24 May 2012 (CEST)

Talk:Battle of Haibi

2012-03-11T22:49:53Z

Fhd remix: Forgot my four tildes and didn't see the horizontal rule.

This story was written after the related ''[[FHD Remix]]: Three Worlds In One'', but is written in such a way that it does not matter in which order you read them. You don't have to know anything about ''Three Worlds In One'' to understand ''Battle of Haibi'' and you don't need to read ''Battle of Haibi'' any more for ''Three Worlds In One'' than you do for the original ''Haibane Renmei''.
------

Hi, I've only just learned of the Roku Corporation located here:

http://www.roku.com/

Hopefully, there is no significance to this rather interesting coincidence. I'm not much of a Netflix fan, which is probably why I hadn't discovered them earlier. [[User:Fhd remix|Fhd remix]] 23:49, 11 March 2012 (CET)

Talk:Battle of Haibi

2012-03-11T22:48:37Z

Fhd remix:

This story was written after the related ''[[FHD Remix]]: Three Worlds In One'', but is written in such a way that it does not matter in which order you read them. You don't have to know anything about ''Three Worlds In One'' to understand ''Battle of Haibi'' and you don't need to read ''Battle of Haibi'' any more for ''Three Worlds In One'' than you do for the original ''Haibane Renmei''.

Hi, I've only just learned of the Roku Corporation located here:

http://www.roku.com/

Hopefully, there is no significance to this rather interesting coincidence. I'm not much of a Netflix fan, which is probably why I hadn't discovered them earlier.

Rise of Glie Chapter 52

2011-12-08T08:43:56Z

Fhd remix: Updated APXS status now that both MERs are dead and MSL has been launched.

[http://haibaniki.rubychan.de/wiki/Rise_of_Glie Back to Rise of Glie main directory]

Previous: [[Rise of Glie Chapter 51]]: An Old Friend

== FHD Remix: The Rise of Glie ==

Chapter 52: Vacation, What's That?

"Why in tarnation are you in such a hurry, Fushoku?" Hane asks. To her, the boy seemed to become a man instantly in his early twenties.

Fushoku stews over a microscope, "Subarashii!" he gasps. Turning to Hane, he answers, "I really can't say, but I wonder where you got these motors from ... the registration on this batch is ''perfect!''"

She drops a small object nine centimetres wide and about sixteen centimetres long on his desk. It has a few pins sticking out the back that look like they're some sort of cable header, and a plateau in the lid is round. Taking off the top, he sees inside that it is a disk drive of some sort. "The motors I gave you used to drive these," she sets several small triangles beside the drive, "Ignore that English word ''Seagate,'' the thing has nothing to do with aqueducts. Washi told me this thing was hundreds of years old. Some sort of magnetic storage disk."

"Why aren't they using it?" Fushoku asks.

"Flip it over," she says, "It'll be obvious."

He does, and sees the little black squares on the green plastic. Pre-Glie microchips that got fried by delta radiation. "Yeah," he moans, then sets it back down. Then he smiles, "Thanks for the motors, they're certainly being put to good use. The next big problem is the dust in this place. That'll have to wait for the other wing"

"You've trained Kiniiri quite well on the twenty micrometre equipment," she says, "Teisei is quite impressed with his speed, but Kiniiri ... well... He doesn't understand the process."

"Not yet," Fushoku says, "but he's picking it up fast."

"It's ever since he gave you that drawing, Taka I mean," she wonders, "You've been working yourself sore. What is it about that drawing?"

"I really can't say," he says while carefully setting his latch die into a tester with special die tweezers.

"That test jig is so small," she gasps, "but under the scope it looked so," it dawns on her, "Fushoku, is that ''five'' micrometres?"

"Yes," Fushoku says, "I was hoping not to spoil the surprise."

Hearing the buzz on her oven, Hane departs, but comes back after a few minutes.

Fushoku is beaming that his little memory chip is working perfectly, "''Yes!''" he cheers softly, so as not to be heard throughout Wire Factory.

"That you're working on five micrometres already really is a surprise, Fushoku," Hane says, "Are we skipping the ten micrometre process? We ordered all that stuff from the Toga-"

"Ten micrometres goes into production in two weeks," Fushoku says flatly, "''That's'' the surprise."

"How could you do it so fast?" she asks, sitting down.

He turns to her and explains, "There aren't very many circuit designers around here. Bangou, actually, was our only one. Now, it's this ''Tiindare'' fellow, one of the council members at the temple," indicating the name on the paperwork, which was laminated at Jose's shop to make it compatible with the cleanroom. "It simply wasn't worth doing a complete redesign for ten micrometres, so we got the Toga to shrink the Mark Four's plans down to ten micrometres. Mark Five will run twice as fast and have six times as much memory."

"Why are we in such a hurry to make these things better?" she asks, "From what I can tell, we could still be building grown transistors and the Toga would be happy as ice cream."

"It turns out there ''is'' competition, Hane," Fushoku says quietly, "Someone out there is trying to make computers that are immune to delta radiation. We have to stay in the lead."

"Okay," Hane says, "In that case, I better get back to work, too."

"Hane," he says as she's about to exit his lab, "I'll take vacation with you next week."

"Vacation?" she says, "what's that?"

"Has it really been that long?" Fushoku smiles, "This week's batch of Mark Four dice is our last. We won't be starting Mark Five until the following week. Besides, the Toga are drowning in our chips because our output's been so high."

At lunch, Kiniiri stares at the old junction transistors, "Four ''hundred'' of these are on each chip?" he gasps.

"Yeah," Teisei says.

Kiniiri giggles at that point, "I was just thinking, if these transistors were like coins, you know, order a bowl of soup and the guy says, "That'll be five hundred transistors."

"Inflation would be ''quite'' the problem," Teisei says.

"Quite the problem," Kiniiri realizes, "It's only a matter of time, but the delta poison that wrecked the old computers will eventually wreck ours. Transistors will be totally worthless when that happens."

Fushoku doesn't seem to remember what happened between when Kiniiri said that and the next morning. As the Communicator returned from the Toga at the gate, the gate closing behind them with dozens of computers stacked on the small trucks, carefully wrapped under the blue canvas carts that covered the plywood they brought in, Fushoku noticed that her shoulders drooped.

"Is there something wrong?" Fushoku asks quietly.

"These," Washi drops several circuit boards on the cart's caddy.

Fushoku looks at the unfamiliar devices. In moments he recognizes that they have been damaged, circuit traces cut so that the transistors are isolated. The transistors are the old junction transistors that they made in Stone Mill. The board has white powder on it, and he recognizes that that's what became of the polyethylene seal. As he realizes what's wrong...

"Delta radiation is suspected," Washi says, seems to hesitate for a moment, but as she starts to speak again, to Fushoku it sounds like Bangou with an old man's voice, "The ''npn'' transistors fail open at the seven-crate operating voltages, while the ''pnp'' transistors fail closed, shorted right through. ''Quietly'' take these apart and examine the crystals with your new APXS, find out how much aluminum they've grown."

"It's getting worse out there?" Fushoku asks.

"Yes," Washi whispers, "I have numbers, but I can't show you here. Come to the Temple this evening. I rest up early so I can see you late. Try to keep your excursion secret from the other haibane, but if Taka follows you, ignore him."

"It'll have to be dark," Fushoku says, "I'm working fourteen hours these days."

"I know," she says, "But I will let you know, that my current projections show we will have a market for about 360 years. I need your APXS results to refine it."

"I have some good news, too," Fushoku says, "the size of the junction crystal is in moderation territory."

"I've taken that into account," she says, "but hey, 360 years is a good number. If we own the market for that long, the enemy will forget about their diamond project."

"I can tell there's more on your mind than that, Washi," Fushoku says respectfully, "I knew Bangou better than you think."

"My life is very complicated, now," she says.

The ride the rest of the way back to Wire Factory in silence.

"Hey!" Hane screams, running circles around the factory as they approach. She runs up to the cart and screams, "These crows opened our air conditioning housing and started tearing apart the filters. I had to shut it down and evacuate the factory. We scrambled to wrap everything up, but I don't know how much dust is in there."

"What?" Fushoku gasps.

"Yeah, we haven't gotten any work done today," Teisei says, "and we can't get them to leave. How the heck they got ''into'' the air conditioning, I have no idea! And we can't find Taka ''anywhere!''"

Fushoku and the Washi look at each other. Fushoku holds up one hand, then tucks back his pinky. In the crow's derivation of Toganese, he signs, "Tonight."

Washi gives him the slightest of nods.

Fushoku jumps off the cart and storms around behind Wire Factory's operational wing.

"Start your cleaning pass inside if you can breathe in there," Fushoku instructs in an angry growl, "I'll handle this ... ''alone.''"

The other haibane figure this is a good idea, having never seen Fushoku so ticked off.

He gets to the back, where he sees three crows standing on the opened air conditioning system, "Would you guys knock it off!" he bellows, grabbing a broom and winding up.

The crows are ready to evade, but they seem very shocked at Fushoku's anger.

The broom bounces harmlessly off the heavy metal frame of the air conditioning unit as the three crows fly around to new perches only a few feet away. He takes another swing while looking around. Confirming he's alone, he sets the broom aside, signing with his three fingers and thumb, "An act."

"Get out of here!" he bellows at the top of his lungs.

One crow signs, "Go."

The other two fly away immediately, squawking indignantly.

Fushoku crosses his arms and signs in proper Toganese, "I'm sorry, but I'm the only haibane who's in on you guys."

"Not anymore," the crow signs, nodding to a nearby tree.

"Aw, crud," Fushoku says aloud, panting from his exertions. He walks over to the tree and whispers, "Psst, come down."

No response.

"Taka," he whispers, "Don't make me come after you."

"Sir," he whispers back, "I'm sorry."

"Yeah," Fushoku huffs, "We'll figure that out later."

He comes down, demonstrating incredible dexterity in the trees. In the tree with him are a pair of hummingbirds, apparently unbothered that Taka got so close to their nest.

"You've gotten into a major pickle, this time," Fushoku warns, "the upside is that you're going to be cover for the crow's sentience. The story for everyone else is that ''you'' let them into the air conditioner."

Taka's shoulder's slump.

"Trust me, it beats the alternatives," Fushoku says.

Taka nods.

"Let's go find out what he wants," Fushoku grumbles.

Fushoku starts signing with the crow; Taka obviously does not understand what they are saying.

The crow starts, "I didn't think it was going to be ''that'' hard to get a hold of you, Ashfeather Implant. Sorry about the mess, we brought our own filter debris, though. Yours are still fine."

"I was with Washi, helping with the swamping at the gate, and you dang well ''know'' that I have to change the filters and do a cleaning pass to cover for you guys. You might as well have torn apart the ones in the unit."

The crow signs, "Sorry, at least you won't have to throw out your current batch of chips."

Fushoku reaches into the machine and hits the flow isolation, then pulls out the filter and replaces it with the standby spares in the locker next to the machine. He whispers aloud, "So how much do you know about our air conditioning, anyway?"

"You can talk to it?" Taka blurts.

"Sure," Fushoku says, "I ''always'' talk to the air conditioning, squirt."

[Author's Note: APXS stands for Alpha Particle X-ray Spectrometer, a handy device for telling you what elements reside in a test sample. I know of the existence of five, four on Mars, one on its way. They are instruments of ''Sojourner, Beagle 2, Spirit, Opportunity,'' and ''Curiosity.'' Doubtless there are a few thousand more on Earth, but I don't know anything about them. The "pair" of hummingbirds are not both parents, since the males do not participate in child rearing. A hummingbird mother will raise two chicks if she can, letting the younger die if there isn't enough food. When they are large enough to fledge, the elder will leave the nest and fly to a branch a few feet away, continuing to be fed by his mother, while the younger will stay in the nest even for a while after he is able to fly. Hummingbirds, are, interestingly enough, among the rudest creatures in God's creation, probably much ruder than ''Kamov'' and ''Apache'' attack helicopters would be to each other if the Cold War had ever warmed up.]

Next: [[Rise of Glie Chapter 53]]: Pretty Brave

[http://haibaniki.rubychan.de/wiki/Rise_of_Glie Back to Rise of Glie main directory]

Rise of Glie Chapter 51

2011-12-08T08:31:56Z

Fhd remix: Assassinated a typo, lmao at the Dilbert crack, I had forgotten about it.

[http://haibaniki.rubychan.de/wiki/Rise_of_Glie Back to Rise of Glie main directory]

Previous: [[Rise of Glie Chapter 50]]: Over Sushi

== FHD Remix: The Rise of Glie ==

Chapter 51: An Old Friend

"Hmm," Washi says, "The knowledge of the past does seem to be filtering through the haibane. I wonder if it'll continue on that way, or if we will have a time that the haibane will not have any memories or dreams that are significant to the whole of Glie."

"Or further," Fushoku says quietly, "I came because, out of everyone in Glie, I figured you'd be the one least likely to freak out if he ever saw this." Slowly, he pulls the rolled drawing out of his bag, unties the string, and shows the Communicator...

...who takes one glance and rolls it back up. "Put it away," the Washi instructs quietly, "If my guards ever find out it exists, they will ''burn'' it." After Fushoku has it put away, Washi remarks, "I didn't know you were having those dreams, too."

Fushoku shakes his head, "No, Taka gave it to me in exchange for the name of delta radiation." He points at the papers on the desk, "What is that?"

"Oh, uh..." Washi seems nervous and shuffles them away.

"Something sensitive?" Fushoku says, "I'm sorry, it's just that they look a lot like Tiindare's circuit plans. The next generation?"

"Yeah," the Communicator says softly.

"You share the desk I take it," Fushoku observes, "I thought he was doing them out at the Toga camp where they have the computers. But er..." something seems to dawn on him. "There would have to be a computer ''here,'' right?" He smiles, "If you ever need help upgrading it, give us a call. Hane and I have gotten pretty good at tweaking things with our electron beam machine, and I muddle through the assembly and wiring, although I don't think I'll ever be as good at it as Aware."

The Communicator seems to be listening intently, but quite nervously.

"Oh, don't worry, we can keep it secret," Fushoku says, "We're insulating the humans from Taka's," he says with a roll of his eyes, "''nonsense,'' after all. We- ... is there something wrong, Washi?"

"Nothing out of the ordinary," the person in the mask says.

"Oh," Fushoku sighs. After a minute, he says, "Is Tiindare working on a five micrometre layout yet? I thought I saw five-mu-m on that plan." Then he puts up his hands, "Oh, don't tell him I asked. He's doing great, and I don't want to put any pressure on him."

"The layout designer has all the pressure she can handle," Washi says, "because ''those'' things outside," Washi points at the bag held by Fushoku, who checks to make sure Taka's drawing is well hidden, "are trying to make computer chips out of ''diamonds.'' We don't want our enemies to gain such technology that is impervious to delta radiation."

Fushoku nods, then after a moment remarks, "''She?''"

"You're my friend," Washi says, "before and since. But I need to hear you say it anyway. You won't tell anyone about what I'm going to show you, right?"

"No," Fushoku shakes his head slowly, "I won't." Slowly he asks, "Tiindare's a woman?"

"I am," Washi says. After this, she slowly lifts her mask.

"Bangou?" Fushoku gasps. He whispers, "It's really ''you?''"

She nods.

"Tiindare isn't actually doing it, is he?" Fushoku gasps, "You just get him to sign ''yours'' to cover the idea that you're the Communicator?"

"Yes," she says.

"You still ''sound'' like an old man," Fushoku observes.

Washi lowers her mask again and explains, "I can't take that part of the uniform off."

Fushoku remembers the fireball that destroyed her last pair of wooden wings, and realizes that the uniform couldn't possibly be able to hide real ones.

As he looks around at the wooden ones, she explains, "Yes, I lost them."

A crow lands on one of her wooden wings and angles the unified pair.

"Wally!" she moans, "Now's not a good time."

The crow tucks one of his feet up and pouts.

Fushoku laughs, "I see you have many friends. Are you in a race with Taka?"

The crow looks at him funny.

"What..." Fushoku looks closely at the crow, "...is ''that?''"

"Is ''what?''" the Communicator asks.

Slowly, Fushoku says, "Just dumb birds?" Then he points at the crow, "Don't tell ''Taka'' that!"

The crow squawks with surprise.

"Great," the Communicator groans, "I dream in Toganese while I'm still a haibane, and I'm the Communicator for a year before I notice you guys can sign it. And ''Wire'' Boy here picks it up instantly."

"Where do ''you'' come from?" Fushoku asks.

"We're hatched from cocoons similar to yours," Wally explains with his feet, "only we remember our lives and names, and can really fly. We can also eat just about anything, and are totally unaffected by delta radiation." He switches to his other foot, "I figured that out when I watched King try to commit suicide by taking a swim in Lake Baikal."

"You remember your old name?" Fushoku remarks, "I wonder what it was."

"Wally of course," the crow answers, then balls up his foot and bangs it against the other. "The downside is," he continues, "We inherit the corvid reputation, and our intelligence is the strictest secret, except for the Toga's origin."

"The Toga's origin," Fushoku wonders.

"Oh, don't tell him, ''everything,''" Washi grumbles.

"You know where the Toga come from?" Fushoku asks.

"Yes," the Communicator says, "The Saviour is probably more powerful than you realize, Fushoku."

"Oh?" he wonders.

"Can you guess why the guards would burn your picture of the Hell Knight if they ever found out it existed?" Washi asks.

He thinks about it for a moment, then shakes his head.

"That's what they used to be," Washi whispers, "The Saviour ''transformed'' them, spirit, soul, ''and'' body. They hate what they were before and are so happy to be welcomed into Saviour's kingdom."

"But that traitor," Fushoku says, "turned away and transformed back into a monster. Was she ever a Toga?"

"Oh, yes," the Communicator explains, "and it ''can'' happen. One of the Saviour's original twelve did that: accepted the Saviour's love and then later rejected and betrayed him. I couldn't believe it when he told me, but he insisted that it was true, and that it was instrumental in the story of how he died for us."

"Died for us?" Fushoku gasps, "He really did? I'm still trying to grok that."

"Yes," she says, "It can be hard to understand, which is why he had me give up my wings: to show the Toga that I feel his love the same way." She sighs, "Anyway, both of you, I better get back to work." She turns to her desk and pulls out her layout drawings as Wally flies away.

"Just a suggestion, old friend," Fushoku says, resting his hand on the Washi's shoulder, a gesture he wouldn't dare try only a few minutes earlier. "If you can make dice that are semi-compatible with the twenty micrometre stuff we're building now, I can get you early silicon. I've already started some test layouts at five micrometres. If you design test versions that we can install in a Mark Four, I can get you some."

"Thank you," she says, "but I'm still getting logic bugs in the simulator program."

"Simulator?" he wonders.

"Yes," she says, "I have three computers, actually, all hidden away. I get them to run input simulations on the logic behaviour. You can tell this is a totally new architecture. Our transistor counts will go up by fifteen with the five micrometre model. I'll ''certainly'' take up your offer though, when I'm ready."

"Well if the simulator-" he starts.

She actually laughs, "Fushoku-san, the real thing will run at least ten thousand times as fast. The simulator is a ''program'' running on a machine that's two generations behind. It needs to run about five hundred instructions on a twenty micrometre logic to simulate just ''one'' for this new design. Now, as for the earliest silicon, here's my idea: If I get you to build it at ''ten'' micrometres-"

"The die would be four times as big," he says frankly, "Wouldn't that put it into moderation territory?"

"Yes, obviously," she says, "But we don't need to worry about the effects of delta radiation ''in Glie.'' We'd only make a dozen sets or so. From those, I can do tests on the design. They'd never go outside." She opens a drawer in the desk and pulls out a few flat plastic things, "I'll get you the drive that reads these disks as soon as I can, but the Toga are still fiddling around with the prototypes, so it'll probably be at least three or four weeks. These are mask programs for some five micrometre latch memory chips." She hands him another small container, "These are some actual latch memory masks that they've scaled down to five micrometres. You can use them to master your technique. Hopefully, you can get down to five micrometres before you have to move to the other wing, but I'll settle for six. Any more than that, and we'll be stuck with a scaling of the Mark Four chips," she pulls out another, much larger stack of disks, "which are right here in ten micrometres."

"Already?" he gasps, "We'll do our best, as always."

"This is important," she says as she turns to him, "We have to beat those Hell Knights and their diamonds to five micrometres, or we're out of business."

"And I'd guess they're throwing a lot more manpower at it," Fushoku says.

"They're ''not'' men, you know," Washi sighs, "But yeah, there are more of them out there than there are haibane in here. Lucky for us, they aren't very bright. See you on Tuesday."

Author's note: On the fourth revision pass, I finally realized that the crow's precursor could be a character from the comic strip ''Dilbert.''

Next: [[Rise of Glie Chapter 52]]: Vacation, What's That?

[http://haibaniki.rubychan.de/wiki/Rise_of_Glie Back to Rise of Glie main directory]

Rise of Glie Chapter 50

2011-12-08T08:22:30Z

Fhd remix: Added translation note

[http://haibaniki.rubychan.de/wiki/Rise_of_Glie Back to Rise of Glie main directory]

Previous: [[Rise of Glie Chapter 49]]: Touchy Topics

== FHD Remix: The Rise of Glie ==

Chapter 50: Over Sushi

She seems very content on her perch, her head on a swivel, as though expecting her prey to be as fearless of the haibane as she herself.

"What is it?" Fushoku whispers.

"I think she's what was called a Great Horned Owl," Taka whispers back, "She's more patient than I am."

"I bet," Fushoku whispers, watching her look around, "Isn't that uncomfortable?"

"She's not as heavy as she looks," Taka quietly groans, "Most of that is feathers. Still, I'm hoping she finds a better perch. My halo isn't always going to be available." Taka's standing there, looking up at the owl's talons only a few inches above his head, at the apparently ''very'' comfortable owl perched on his halo, "Maybe she's warming her feet up after the trip here. It was probably a pretty cold trip for her."

Suddenly, the owl launches into flight, setting Taka's halo wobbling.

"I'm glad the Golden Eagle didn't try that," Taka whines, "Those things are ''huge!''"

"I was going to ask what happened to your mice," Fushoku says.

Taka smiles, "They're going out in a blaze of glory. I raised them for this, after all."

"Sounds like you ''are'' getting used to this," Fushoku smiles, "Come on, supper's getting cold."

Once inside Old Home's little dining hall, and Taka gets to see what it is, he whines at Fushoku, "Supper's getting ''cold?'' Sushi is ''supposed'' to be cold."

That gets a laugh out of Kiniiri, "Maybe you should have come in sooner, bro. That owl'd probably ''love'' sushi."

"I wouldn't count on it," Taka says as he randomly grabs a hand cone. "Who's idea was this?" he remarks with delight after a bite.

"Mine," Hane says, "We take turns cooking for everyone," she explains, "A day at a time. It's Fushoku's turn tomorrow."

"I have chicken in mind," Fushoku says, "I hope you don't mind."

"Not really," Taka says, "I'm almost in a mood for owl."

"Ahhhhh," Fushoku coos, "But what about what's going to go with it? Peas, carrots, sauteed onions, skinny noodles, and string beans."

"Not those big fat ones, I hope," Kiniiri sighs.

"Yup, the big fat string beans," Fushoku smiles, "I'll hide them under the onions, you won't even notice."

"I noticed them last time," Hane says as she sits down with another platter of sushi treats, "I just didn't say anything."

"How long do you think the computers will last?" Taka asks.

"Well, the transistors are lasting three years on the ground," Fushoku says, "None have failed under operational conditions yet. The little one we had come back that Hane's adapting to the oven had a board crack because someone out there dropped it."

"Or ''threw'' it," Hane says, "Those things are not so easy to break, you know."

"What causes them to fail?" Taka asks.

The other haibane seem rather nervous at this question.

"I know already," Taka says, "I just don't know what it's called. It's part of the environment outside the wall."

"You know the Toga actually sell Glie's air?" Kiniiri points out, "They have a compressor at their camp and sell bottles of our clean air to keep that stuff out of the computers. So, what do you call it?"

"Uh," Fushoku says, "The world out there is pretty..."

"Harsh?" Taka says, "I know. Those chickens didn't migrate over three thousand miles of arctic wasteland for ''nothing,'' you know." He leans in close, "Tell you what, you tell me what the poison that doesn't let them build their own computers is called, and I'll draw you something from my dreams."

"Bushi no Shito!" Kiniiri suggests cheerfully. *

"This isn't the sort of thing we normally discuss at supper," Fushoku points out.

"You're right," Kiniiri says, "Bushi no Shito's ''definitely'' not into sushi."

"He'd probably just pluck the fish right out of the stream and swallow it whole," Taka says quietly.

"Wait a minute," Teisei gasps, "Taka, is this thing ''real?''"

"Well," he says slowly, "yes."

Teisei turns to Fushoku and asks, "Could it have been what you saw Washi dealing with that-"

"No," Kiniiri says, "Bushi no Shito's bigger. A ''lot'' bigger."

"So," Taka asks again, "What's that stuff called?"

Fushoku sighs, has one last bite, then whispers, "It's called delta radiation."

"Thanks," Taka says warmly, "Oh. I think you've said that once before," he blushes, "I'll still have a portrait of Bushi no Shito for you next Wednesday. Just one piece of advice though."

"Hmm?" Fushoku prompts over a sip of tea.

"Don't ''ever'' show it to Tiindare," Taka says with deadly seriousness.

"Oh," Kiniiri seems to remember why, "yeah."

"I better not show it to ''anyone,''" Fushoku says.

"Not Janice, that's for sure," Hane says quietly, "She told me about a battle that took place about thirty-five years ago. She's probably seen them in person."

Taka seems somber at the news.

Fushoku notices this and says, "Taka, you ''know'' about that?"

Taka nods, "I've seen a lot in my dreams. God showed me the whole thing. There's a city buried under downtown, most people have forgotten that it even exists."

"You should have seen the look I got from Kenny when I asked about it," Kiniiri says, "I think I scared him half to death."

"Do yourselves a big favor," Fushoku says, "Don't ''ever'' bring that up with the humans. The Haibane Renmei got into a ''lot'' of trouble over those events. We'll be a lot better off if the humans forget about it completely. And trust me, they ''want'' to."

* Author's note: "Bushi no Shito" is my first translation of "Hell Knight" into Japanese ("Bushi no Shigoku" is better.) In ''Doom 3,'' you first encounter them on the nineteenth level: they are about twelve feet tall and do forty points of damage with several different types of attack on the Veteran difficulty level. I've actually killed one with a pistol (on the Veteran difficulty level), although they're brauny enough to warrant a two-point charge from a BFG if you have that. There are about twenty-five in the game. It's hard to tell, but the Kikotsu no Rittae... ...sorry... Soul Cube, only ''barely'' kills it with one hit.

Next: [[Rise of Glie Chapter 51]]: An Old Friend

[http://haibaniki.rubychan.de/wiki/Rise_of_Glie Back to Rise of Glie main directory]

Rise of Glie Chapter 49

2011-12-08T08:15:23Z

Fhd remix: Re-upload, incorrectly uploaded Chapter 50 (sigh)

[http://haibaniki.rubychan.de/wiki/Rise_of_Glie Back to Rise of Glie main directory]

Previous: [[Rise of Glie Chapter 48]]: A New Rule

== FHD Remix: The Rise of Glie==

Chapter 49: Touchy Topics

"Is there anything wrong, sir?" Taka asks the apparently preoccupied Washi seated at the desk.

She's ''really'' embarrassed at the notion that the crows have been trying to sign in Toganese with their feet for her for months and she hasn't even noticed. She finds herself glad of the mask. The crows are probably laughing their estriges off.

"No," she says at last, "Anyway, I'm not usually the talkative one in conversations-"

"Neither am I," the boy smiles. After a moment, he asks, "Are you in on the war, sir?"

"What war?" the Washi asks.

"''The'' war," Taka says.

After a moment, the Washi nods. Jabez cut nice new wooden wings, but he doesn't have the ability to make them alive like those of a haibane.

"Kiniiri got pretty excited when he started seeing the stuff of my dreams at the gate this morning," Taka says. "We live on a planet," he explains, "The second one around the sun; it follows a circle every year. I've noticed how the stars move every night because of it. Ours used to be the third planet, but the original second planet disappeared a hundred, eleven years ago. Not long before that, the oceans were blue and the land was green. The war has been on ever since the first beings on two green planets sinned. On this one, humans ate from the tree that they were told not to: the fruit from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. On the other, haibane with wings, I mean ''huge'' wings, took from its stand, the baton of responsibility, which they were told not to touch. These acts introduced sin and death, and the two great enemies could start The War: Shaitan on this world, Maledict on the other. Both are now here on this planet, trying to wipe us out. Now both planets are red. Thirty-five years ago, a great battle happened here, where the wall was broken down and at the end of the battle, rebuilt, and the sky was sealed. The enemy has always despised that we are made in God's image, because they despise God. After the sky was sealed, they began to hate the birds who could fly where they themselves no longer could. God is bringing all the surviving birds here."

After a minute, Washi says, "Is that all?"

"No," Taka says, "I could go on for days, and I keep learning more every night."

"Anything about where the wall came from?" Washi asks.

"No," Taka says, "But perhaps the song of the wall might give you a clue."

"Song?" Washi wonders.

Taka clears his throat and starts singing:

''[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I2OGvOYI6BQ Never once] have you failed to say to us, "Oh, we thank you."
 ''No, never once, we thank you.
 ''We're sorry to leave you, it has been a pleasure.
 ''We hope that you make it. Try to find us later.''

And that's all he has to offer about the wall.

"Anything about something called <<Campbell?>>" Washi asks.

Taka slowly shakes his head. After a few moments, he adds, "The universe is very big. There could be many things in it."

Washi remembers that she should probably test the boy's dreams, "Anything about a man with holes in his hands?"

"Oh!" Taka seems almost surprised, "Well, yes, that was the first thing I dreamed about after the birds. The Saviour. His death gave us the power to win this war. He gave his life for us, and we lose when we don't respond in kind for his gift."

"Hmm?" Washi prompts.

"We give our lives for him," Taka finishes.

"Well," Washi says, "That's about the only thing that jibes with what I know, but hey. The universe is very big, like you said."

"What sort of things do you know?" Taka asks.

"I can't tell you much," Washi says, "and most people can't handle these sorts of things, anyway. God brings us the haibane from past lives, and of those I have a few details. I know about some of the local details of the area outside the wall, and what's attacking us."

"Where the Toga come from?" Taka asks.

"Hmm?" Washi is pretty nervous.

"Well, you asked about the ''Saviour,''" Taka smiles, "I didn't think I'd have to tell you about where the Toga come from."

"You don't," Washi says, "and you shouldn't either. It is about as touchy a subject as any you can imagine."

"The crows," Taka giggles, "I have quite the imagination."

"You do," Washi says cautiously.

"I'm going to miss my mice," Taka says out of the blue, "I'm starting to like them."

"Mice?" Washi asks, then realizes, "Oh, those smelly little fuzzy things that like to get into everything? What the heck are you raising hundreds of those little pests for, anyway? And don't let Stanley find out, either."

"More birds are coming," Taka says, "And they eat mice. Best be prepared."

--------

"I miss Aware," Fushoku grumbles as he struggles to reassemble the prototype computer. He's just upclocked it based on Hane's stability improvements.

"So do I," Hane sighs as she nurses a used fruitbox computer to life to run the diffusion oven, "I miss you too, though, since now you're like ''vanishing'' into his paperwork."

"Yeah," he answers, "but he was really good at putting these beasts together too." He sets his screwdriver aside and then reaches for the soldering iron. He makes his connection, and then sets the soldering iron in its stand, turns on the computer, seeing a series of messages showing that he has ''finally'' gotten the replacement module installed properly.

Teisei quietly slips into the room and asks, "Hi, fellas, how are you guys doing?"

"Seventeen down, three steps to go on getting this thing up to Mod 14," Fushoku grumbles, having opened the computer up again to complete step eighteen.

Teisei sighs, "Aware would have been done over an hour ago."

"I know," Fushoku sighs, then reaches for a volt probe. After reaching into the computer and making something snap, he touches the voltmeter probe against something at the edge of the main circuit board and says, "Eighteen."

"You'll get used to it," Teisei says, "I hope we get someone as nice and as skillful as Aware again soon." He turns to Hane and says, "You're getting good at this, you probably wouldn't believe the yields we're getting. I think we can tackle five microns before we need to move to the other wing."

"Whatever we settle on will be the production model for quite a while, since it'll take Stanley's crew a whole year to finish it," Hane says, "and I wonder how long this'll last."

"How long ''what'' will last?" Teisei asks.

"Well," Hane answers, "We're fighting a radiation that damages these computers, and I have a feeling that it is building up and will eventually defeat all of our efforts to fight it. When that happens, we're out of business. Could be a few centuries, but maybe it'll be only a few years."

"Done," Fushoku announces as he closes the computer. It runs for the first time since the day before, now some 20% faster.

"Yay!" Hane cheers as it comes back up. After this, they return to their production jobs until lunch.

"I think Aware probably would have gotten it done yesterday," Fushoku sighs as he crawls out of his cleanroom bunny suit.

"I didn't want to say anything," Hane smiles as she plates up lunch at the stove, it being her turn to cook today.

"Um, hi?" Kiniiri pops his head in around the corner from outside.

"Oh," Teisei notices, "Hi, Kiniiri, come sit down."

As they do, Hane brings the food, "What brings you here?"

"Oh," he blushes, "I hadn't seen Aware in a while, and remembered that he works here. Then I remembered when I had walked more than half the distance from Old Home. I decided maybe I should try to find a job here, now that all the chickens have been adopted."

"It'll take a while to learn anything," Fushoku says, "Since it's pretty skilled work, but er..."

"Aware did all the things that didn't require a whole ''lot'' of skill," Teisei explains, "Well, except for leadership and materials ordering."

"And assembly," Fushoku grumbles, stuffing a pile of rice in his mouth with his chopsticks.

"So, yeah," Hane says, "We'll get you started on moving stuff around, today. We have a pretty ambitious production goal. Do that for a few days, and we'll start training you on something next week."

Kiniiri smiles, "Thanks."

Next: [[Rise of Glie Chapter 50]]: Over Sushi

[http://haibaniki.rubychan.de/wiki/Rise_of_Glie Back to Rise of Glie main directory]

Rise of Glie Chapter 46

2011-12-06T20:50:31Z

Fhd remix: Assassinated a typo

[http://haibaniki.rubychan.de/wiki/Rise_of_Glie Back to Rise of Glie main directory]

Previous: [[Rise of Glie Chapter 45]]: You'll Get Used to It

== FHD Remix: The Rise of Glie ==

Chapter 46: Flight of Sadness

"Where were you on Tuesday?" Washi asks as she hears Wally land in the high branches in the tree.

<How'd you know it was me?> thinks he. Wally knows the question is rhetorical, since he has no way of answering, and it's none of her business anyway. The truth was, and Washi probably knows this, that the traitor wasn't with the Toga that day. Also, Imps like chicken, so he had to find her a diversion.

Washi claps at him to show the smile hidden by her mask, then beckons him to come to the gazebo, where she has fashioned a much smaller shelf for her work writing the Haibane Renmei's official records on their own handmade paper. The laser printer and its associated fanciness are locked away in a store room so as not to mar the temple's quaint beauty; a beauty that hides so well its original purpose as Defense Tower Four.

As she sits down, she says, "How a hellspawn can pass as a Toga, I have no idea. Their form would revert if they betrayed us ... or they would simply die outright."

<Makes her easy to spot.> The crow squawks.

A second crow lands on the gazebo's railing, flitting its tail like a finch a couple of times after it lands.

"Oh, you again," Washi laughs, "Are you in on this little caper?"

It reaches over its left wing and awkwardly balances on its right foot for a couple of seconds. Its bill emerges with a small piece of paper.

Washi takes it and quietly reads, "I know where. He showed me." in Toganese, followed by a non-standard set of four scratches. Two long ones and two short ones.

The Communicator lets out a sigh of relief. "I'm glad it's not him," she says as she burns the tiny message in the flame of her candle.

Wally spreads his wings wide and bows for Washi. The other crow follows suit. Wally then utters a three tone overture. Washi has come to understand that this means, "We present you our play."

"Go ahead," she whispers.

The crows turn to face one another, awkwardly straddling the railing with both feet. The second crow tilts back its head and puffs up its chest while Wally bows to it like a knight swearing an oath.

"He's the king?" Washi guesses.

Wally points his beak at her and extends his right wing a little bit. It means, "Close."

Wally then flies to the same empty storage room with the pots on the window sill as before and lands on the handle. It is not locked, and he weighs enough to turn the lever. He wipes out into the snow in front of the now ajar door. After a bit of thrashing, he rights himself and takes flight, showing he's alright.

Washi lets them in, and they fly to the hanging lamp.

Wally hangs on as the take-off of the other crow sets the lamp swinging wildly. It dives upon the same empty pot and knocks it down.

"Oh," the Communicator realizes as she sets the pot back, "You're in charge of the operation to catch the traitor, is that it?"

Both birds fully extend their right wings.

"You know, this would be a lot easier if she'd ever notice we can sign with our feet," says the other crow to Wally in ravenfoot Toganese.

--------

The gentle light flickers.

"I guess we got this done just in the nick of time," Fushoku says as he turns on the lab's main light.

"You have the optical masks for the current batch finished, I'm assuming?" Aware says from the prototype assembly bench.

Fushoku nods. Hane, beside him, looks almost stricken, but forces a smile anyway. The group's usual enthusiasm seems to have evaporated.

"Let's try it out!" Aware says as he opens the monitor lid of the new computer. While conceptually similar to the "notebook" computers of a lost golden age, this one is not meant to be mobile, being nearly the same size as the the previous Mark Three, but stuffed with more memory to drive the new screen. This is new microchip memory from Wire Factory itself, as opposed to the ancient core memory the Toga can make. The battery is sized to last it five minutes, tucked away in a corner near the back of the case, since all the interface jacks are at the front of this particular computer.

The computer starts up for the first time, showing a set of diagnostic parameters in Toganese. "Yes!" Teisei cheers with a deep, but quiet breath as the messages of perfect health scroll away.

It startles Aware into turning towards him momentarily, but the bittersweet look on his face makes him turn back to the machine.

"I can't wait to show the Communicator," Fushoku sighs.

Fushoku's words fade as though a wall has formed between them, and Aware's eyes widen as the machine is set in a red glow. Suddenly he sees to his right a large, star-shaped pad. On the screen is a different language, not Toganese. It startles him; more ancient than English even. He hears a rattling, malicious hiss, almost like a snake. A gnarled hand, not his own, reaches for the star-shaped pad and glows red.

Startled, he jumps up, realizing he was superimposed as a ghost over the computer's "real" operator. He hears the distant crash of a chair, as though in another room, but the operator is still seated in its chair.

A strange monster with nine eyes and no clothes responds to a high pitched beep, which Aware knows is the battery low warning. It presses its hand against the pad and the fire in its hand courses through the coils behind the pad. A bar graph he hadn't noticed before advances suddenly. His glance follows the cord between the power jack of the computer, but instead of leading to the wall at Old Home, it leads to the pad. He realizes that this monster just recharged the battery with fire from its hand. He looks around at the earthen walls of a cave lined with human bones.

"Oh, God!" he blurts, slamming his eyes shut and quivering.

"Aware, what's wrong?" Fushoku's voice, along with his hands around Aware's shoulders.

"The memory test is running perfectly so far," Teisei notes.

"It's not that," Hane says as she sets right Aware's chair, which he had sent flying when he jumped up. "Sir," she says slowly, "We're here for you. What's the matter?"

Aware opens his eyes and breathes a sigh of relief that he's back in the "normal" Wire Factory, and the strange pad and language are not really on the computer he just assembled.

"You ''are'' going to Fly, right?" Fushoku asks.

"Maybe we should get him out of the suit to check his feathers," Hane hastily suggests.

"I'm fine," Aware says, "Saviour finally answered a question I've been pestering him about since before you hatched."

All three of the younger haibane surround the elder, now physically in his forties, looking into his troubled eyes.

"''Who'' is outside the wall?" Aware quivers, "Who are these computers for?" He takes his seat again, "I got a glimpse of one of them, must be who the Toga sell them to."

"Well?" Teisei asks.

"Terrible," he shakes his head, "I didn't hear its name. But I'm so glad of the wall now, knowing what it protects us from. And who."

"When is your Flight, Aware-san?" Fushoku asks, "If you may tell us."

"Oh?" Aware asks, as if he has no idea what Fushoku's asking about.

"Your halo is flickering," Hane explains, "you're Leaving the Nest, soon, aren't you?"

"Oh, darn, what time is it?" Aware asks, glancing at the clock. Nearly in a panic he leaps from his chair, not knocking it over this time, and rushes out, "Oh, guys. I'm so sorry, please forgive me."

Following him, they notice that his bento, but not his book bag, is missing from the lunch room. They see him running into the setting sun, still in his bunny suit. No one blinks until he is out of sight.

Fushoku starts to cry.

"I guess it's like that sometimes," Hane whispers, trying to comfort her stricken boss.

The three haibane are joined by the others who work at Wire Factory, standing there until the stars come out as the blue sky fades to black. While the glow of the sun still wanders over the distant wall, the light beam from the northwest shoots into the clear sky, impaling the one tiny cloud in it. Several minutes later, it fades, and the gathered haibane slowly disperse in twos and threes, comforting each other at the sudden loss of their leader: Aware, the first Haibane of Old Home.

Next: [[Rise of Glie Chapter 47]]: A Number of Stones

[http://haibaniki.rubychan.de/wiki/Rise_of_Glie Back to Rise of Glie main directory]

Rise of Glie Chapter 38

2011-12-06T08:31:21Z

Fhd remix: My Little Phoenix linked

[http://haibaniki.rubychan.de/wiki/Rise_of_Glie Back to Rise of Glie main directory]

Previous: [[Rise of Glie Chapter 37]]: One Box

== FHD Remix: The Rise of Glie ==

Chapter 38: Eternity

[Author's note: There is an homage to Tarja Turunen's [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4udPWOZqjig ''My Little Phoenix''], seventh track of her first solo album, ''My Winter Storm.'']

The Toga stares at the Communicator for a few moments after the strangely uniformed individual has disembarked from the motorized cart. Tender hands sign slowly, "Greetings, sir. Pending your approval of Wire Factory's production plans for the Mark Three computer, we trust that this will be the last shipment of single transistors. Wire Factory has also developed two new types for power control: the <<flat>> junction and the <<argon shunt>> type. They call it <<argon shunt>> even though it has no argon in it." [She is referring to what are known in real history as the Hoerni planar transistor introduced by Fairchild and the "thyratron" transistor introduced by IBM, the original thyratron being the gas-filled electronic tube it replaced. Things at Wire Factory are being invented in a different order than they were in real history.]

The Toga claps the back one hand into the palm of the other. In Toganese, this is laughter. [In ''Star Trek: Deep Space Nine,'' the Bajorans applaud in this way.]

The Communicator's feathered wings droop slightly, conveying a lack of understanding. "<<Argon shunt transistor>> couldn't have been ''that'' funny," the hands explain.

"Ashfeather Number," the Toga signs at last, "The halo and wings are a dead giveaway, but we still appreciate the gesture. It's two-long, two-short, if you didn't recognize me."

"Not a clue," she confesses.

"We ''really'' want this new computer of yours to work properly for our customers," he explains, "so we have been doing comparative runs with our seven-crate, as we call the Mark Two. If you're curious, the two-truck, our name for the Mark One, which fit in nineteen crates, was the vacuum tube operated beast we designed for our partners outside. Believe it or not, a hundred and twenty of them exist, at least. There may be more vacuum tube computing systems of which we are not aware."

The Toga finds a thick sheaf of finely printed reports for her, "Other than the register bug you told us of last week, the biggest problem with the Mark Three is that a certain driving wire in the core unit doesn't get enough power. After reading your developer's report, we decided to part it to a controlled power supply, along with select other driving wires in the plane, and we have localized the flaw to..."

Bangou is astonished to hear that this bug, along with several others, the Toga have put in the effort to narrow them to individual dice. Of another twenty bugs, they supply voluminous information that will help Wire Factory fix the problems in a matter of hours instead of weeks.

"The division bug you mentioned," the Toga goes on, "only affects a few instructions, and so we went to the developer's manual you gave us last week. If we've read this right, there is a bug in the microcode, rather than the logic itself. We are very impressed with how you redesigned the logic. Your logic package runs its simple set over five times as fast as seven-crate, and even with the encoding, decoding, and microcoding stuff, little fruitbox is still a bit faster."

Bangou lets loose an amused squeal with her Toganese laughing gesture. "Fruitbox," she signs, "I like it. Very fitting description."

"We brought in a second transistor wiring machine and have seven-crate running this one," he points, "and fruitbox running this one."

"Seems to be working fine," she notes.

"Workarounds," the Toga notes, "See how the fruitbox machine's armature makes this little nonsense jig sideways that seven-crate doesn't. That avoids triggering the division bug."

"How many more seven-crates do you plan to build?" Bangou asks.

"As few as possible," Two-long Two-short answers, "Number Five is undergoing assembly in an outside camp, the modules are finished and she is going through acceptance tests. We are about thirty-five percent through transistor wiring of Number Six, this shipment, if it's more than four thousand four hundred..."

Bangou checks the manifest to see that it is not; they need about two thousand more transistors.

"...we'll have all the transistors, assuming fruitbox doesn't wreck too many more," the Toga explains. He looks at the cart's second trailer and asks, "What's that?"

"A mask cutting machine," Bangou explains, "We can only unveil it in a cleanroom, but we have written a program for fruitbox that I'm pretty sure will run on seven-crate if you try it. So far, it will only cut the masks for the latch registers, but when we go into mass production, we will need lots of them. A mask will only last through about five to ten batches."

"Oh," the Toga signs, "Why? The optical printing processes of integration shouldn't be that hard on masks."

Bangou turns to him, and signs slowly, "Optical what?"

The Toga signs, "Don't you transfer the mask pattern to the integration wafer using an optical process and photographic chemicals?"

"No," Bangou responds, "The mask is applied directly to the wafer, and only allows the process to affect the transistor areas selected for a particular process step. Removing it in good enough shape to use for the next one is quite difficult, and each mask must be inspected before its next use. We're getting better at it. I've never heard of <<photographic>> before."

"Oh, dear," he signs, "Let us sell you the books we based that assumption on, and for next week, we can prepare an estimate for what you will need in terms of photographic chemicals and equipment to allow you to experiment with these processes. Before the Final War, these processes developed for almost two hundred years. You will need the older ones first as a foundation."

"How fancy did it get, if you don't mind my asking?" Bangou says, "Please reveal nothing about the Final War itself. We trust our wall."

"Multiple component layers with features measured down to about five hundred picometres. A picometre is a millionth of a micrometre, your features are currently fifty of those, so about..." the Toga pauses to figure, "about a hundred thousand times as large in one dimension, so about ten billion times as large in two. We have confidence in you, since the first fifty years of semiconductor development saw features down to ninety nanometres in a single component layer, with integrated capacitors and resistors. Oxide insulation was allowing seven layers of printed wiring above the component layer. There is one called Implant among you that seems to understand all this intuitively. We pray for him always, that he may, even in the tiny community inside this wall, use that understanding to outpace history." The Toga taps through the tarp onto the mask machine, "No disappointments in that regard so far."

''Implant?'' Bangou scrounges her head to try to sound out what that would be in Japanese. She realizes that it's on Fushoku's tag at Wire Factory. "Corrode" that she always saw was on his Old Home name tag.

The Toga makes a quick gesture to the crow standing in the tree, who perks up, caws twice long, twice short, then after a pause, caws three short calls, followed by a long one.

Bangou finds herself glad of the mask, that the Toga can't see the look on her face.

Another Toga emerges from the "translator" tent with an outrigger pallet lift and in a couple of minutes, the cart's two trailers and small bed are unloaded. A few minutes later, it is stacked with lumber, drywall, books, and filled fuel cans, along with a bag of delta-resistant wild rice as a free sample. One of the Toga hands her a small glass jar wrapped in a cloth and bows deeply, then apparently waits for her to return the gesture.

Bangou has no idea, so she carefully unwraps the jar. Based on the trembling of the Toga's hands, this is obviously not something that the elder Communicator normally does.

Hikarinium flakes.

She carefully rewraps it, hands it back and signs, "So sorry, let me try that again."

The ceremony is repeated, with Washi giving the proper reception to the special flakes of halo metal recovered from the shipment while it waited between the inner and outer gates.

--------

"''Always'' remember your hairnet, Teisei," Fushoku says, "with hair like that, I might not catch it if you miss."

"I was just testing you," he says with a grin as he tightens his head garmet, "I ''almost'' missed it day before yesterday, and you didn't notice. I felt the breeze in the airlock and realized it couldn't possibly be there."

"Good thing you're not an astronaut," Fushoku says with a pat on his shoulder.

"Good thing I'm working for you and not Stanley," he says, "He'd have sacked me by now, I"m sure."

"I doubt it," Fushoku says, "I can tell you have an uncompromising attitude about your work. Actually, Stanley keeps those who compromise their work too, but they just move bricks and lumber between those who don't, so that the only things they can hurt are their toes."

The walls in the dressing room and the well-ventilated airlock designed to keep the dust from getting from the dressing room to the cleanroom, as well as the production floor itself, are all painted semi-gloss white so that it is very easy to tell when they're dirty. There are some black checkerboard sections so that light-colored crud is also easy to spot.

"Oh," Hane says, catching up, "Can I get through on this bunch?" She is rapidly buttoning up so that she can join them on this trip through the airlock into the cleanroom.

"Where's Bangou?" Fushoku asks.

"It's ''Tuesday,'' remember?" Hane giggles, "You know, the Toga, Washi's day off?"

"So, today," Fushoku says loud enough to be heard over the ventilation, "We're hoping to break a new total record by topping thirty percent yield on the two register batches we started yesterday. Where are we at with yours?"

"Fifty-five percent," she answers, "I lost a whole wafer because the p-mask busted in half during removal. It's tricky to remove the right amount of material to get the mask off without polishing the doped areas right off the wafer."

"No, it's my fault," Fushoku says, "The rouge is too hard. It's wearing the masks out faster than I expected. I-"

"What's wrong?" Teisei asks. Fushoku sort of looked away, lost in thought for a moment.

"We need to get that ''light'' stuff soon," he says, "In my dreams, I used light to transfer the mask pattern to the wafers. It was way more complicated than my glasses." Normally, he leaves those in his lunch room locker since he doesn't need to see long distances and can't do inspections while wearing them. They are just a collector of the organic crud his face normally produces, but which wreaks havoc with the product. "But," he goes on, "there was something to put on the wafer that reads the light. I just haven't figured out what it is yet."

As the day comes to a close, the haibane have met their production goals, although they're clocking out forty-five minutes late.

Hane emerges into the lunch hall first, popping her hair loose from the confining bun, leaving the strawberry strands with irregular waves. As she combs it out, she notices a book on the table with a note that says, "Can't stay, making other deliveries. - Bangou"

The book is a tattered hardcover text entitled "History of Integrated Circuit Fabrication". She opens it and flips through. "My God," she gasps, "We know ''nothing!''"

"What's wrong?" Fushoku asks as he emerges from the dressing room.

"Nothing," Hane says, nearly in tears, "That stuff about the light you were babbling about this morning..."

"What about it?" Fushoku asks.

Showing him the page, Hane sobs, "It's called <<photoresist>>."

Fushoku looks breathlessly at a couple of pages, then closes it to see the title, "Where did this come from?"

"Ask Bangou," Hane suggests, "She left this note."

--------

That night, she has the strangest of dreams. She is in a different city, one far older than Glie, with far smaller and simpler walls. She wears a shawl to hide her hair and follows a noisy procession with a trail of blood. Three men are being led to their executions. One stubbornly presses on, carrying a large piece of wood on his back while the other two are whipped to get them to move. He is in the worst shape of the three by far, so beat up you can hardly tell he was human. The guards with strange brush hats and steel spears called triari take another man from the crowd of onlookers and force him to carry the wood for the death row prisoner.

Bangou finds a woman bawling louder than the rest and comes to her to ask.

"My son," she responds sadly, "My eldest son."

"What was he convicted of?" Bangou asks.

"Nothing," the woman responds, "Nothing at all. He has never done anything wrong in his whole life. He's the only person who was ''ever'' like that, and he's being executed for being that person. The Saviour of the world."

"Saviour?" Bangou gasps. He never looked like this in her other dreams.

 she hears his voice in his head, <and laid down my life for all.>

She becomes aware it is a dream, and suddenly feels her wings again.

Bangou asks, "Ma'am, what is your name, if you don't mind my asking?"

"Miriam," she answers.

<Would you give up your wings for me? Help me win those souls outside, like Shiden before you. Love them as I love you?> he asks.

"Love who?" she asks.

Miriam does not hear her. The Saviour answers, <The monsters outside the wall. Love your enemies. Pray for those who persecute you. Do good to those who hate you. Isn't it normal for one to love those who love him, and hate those who hate him? It is special to do this, Bangou. You may serve me in this special way.>

Two characters form in her vision, "万劫".

--------

She bolts awake. Oh, it's my turn to cook breakfast. Quickly, she gets dressed and heads to the east wing kitchen.

As breakfast begins, she sits down with Fushoku, Haoto, and Aware and casually asks Aware, "Since you're the eldest haibane, I was wondering if you ever knew someone named Shiden?"

Aware responds uncomfortably, "Shiden ... uh ... Flew ten years ago, shortly before we fused the dyke."

Bangou can tell he's lying, and decides not to press. The curiosity about this "Shiden" that the Saviour mentioned festers in her, and she can hardly wait to get Aware alone to press him for the truth. She soon finds a dictionary to look up the characters she saw in her vision.

"Are you okay, Bangou?" Aware asks, noticing her discomfort.

"Oh, fine," she says, biting her lower lip as she returns the book to the desk.

Eternity is set in her eyes, and it is probably obvious to Aware. The two characters that ended her dream mean "Eternity" and are pronounced "Bangou".

Next: [[Rise of Glie Chapter 39]]: Old Wings

[http://haibaniki.rubychan.de/wiki/Rise_of_Glie Back to Rise of Glie main directory]

Current events

2011-12-04T00:00:33Z

Fhd remix:

Most recent activity here has been by User FHD_Remix (and for ''FHD Remix'' trilogy). A couple of chapters were missing from ''[[Rise of Glie]]'' and are being placed in their proper places. That is uber-embarrassing. [[User:Fhd remix|Fhd remix]] 01:00, 4 December 2011 (CET)

Rise of Glie Chapter 30

2011-12-03T23:31:05Z

Fhd remix: Wire Factory is in the East District...

[http://haibaniki.rubychan.de/wiki/Rise_of_Glie Back to Rise of Glie main directory]

Previous: [[Rise of Glie Chapter 29]]: The Last Place on Earth, Period.

== FHD Remix: The Rise of Glie ==

Chapter 30: The Toga's Computer Language

She feels pretty goofy standing there in the middle of the garden with the sparrows staring at her like she's some sort of strange apparition. A lone crow stands atop the Temple wall like the dark sentinel in charge of the place. She got the little bells at the entrance and stands there with her hands clasped.

"You are Bangou, the new haibane who hatched four days ago in Old Home," the old voice flows softly from an unseen place in the bushes up ahead, "Is this correct?"

It takes some concentration for Bangou to ring only the bells on her right wing, but she succeeds.

"Please," Washi encourages as he emerges from a well concealed path without even touching a leaf, "exercise your wings now that you have recovered from their emergence. They should be as natural to use as your hands and feet."

Bangou stands there, not able to respond. She slowly swings back both wings over her back, too slowly to ring the bells, as he approaches.

"This," he offers the notebook he is holding, "is your haibane notebook. It guarantees your daily life."

She gracefully takes it with both hands and bows.

"You look as though you have an itching question," Washi observes, "You may speak."

"What is outside the wall, sir?" she asks politely.

"I cannot say," he sadly intones, "their secrets are theirs to keep."

"I don't mean who," Bangou adds hastily, "I mean ''what?'' Fushoku said that inside the wall is the only place that microchips can be made. I'd like to know why."

"Why would you like to know?" Washi asks.

"A man is teaching me things in my dreams," she says, "like how to design the patterns of Fushoku's metal gate transistors so that they can add numbers. He's taught me the binary numbers of computers. How's this?" She crosses her arms and signs the ten digits in Toganese, which uses four fingers in a binary mode to represent them. After a moment, she repeats her original question, "So, what's outside the wall that they can't do any of this?"

"Why don't you ask him?" the Communicator wonders.

"I can't," she says, "Whenever I try, my mind goes blank and my lips don't move. Strange thing about dreams, really."

"I don't want to say," Washi says, "but there is someone in town who knows. May I borrow your notebook for a moment?"

As she offers it back, she says, "I know. I asked him already."

Washi opens Bangou's notebook to the first page, and, it seems from out of nowhere, produces a black feather quill pen and carefully scratches the Haibane Renmei logo and a triangle. "Show Fushoku that, and he'll tell you."

--------

"This is neat," Fushoku says, "The Toganese language does seem specifically designed to be used in computers."

"What?" Bangou gasps, "What the heck is Toganese?"

"''That'' language," he points at her hands.

She tucks them timidly behind her back, "I ... I'm just using them to explain the instruction set the Saviour showed me."

"Which happens to be Toganese," he laughs. "You've been here what? Four weeks?"

"Five on Friday," she says.

"Almost five weeks," Fushoku says, "And you've ''never-''" he realizes something.

"What is it?" Bangou asks nervously.

"You've never gone to Market Square on a Tuesday, have you?" Fushoku asks.

"No," she answers, "I've never been to the Market Square at all."

"So you've probably never seen an actual Toga," Fushoku says.

"Umm... No," she answers slowly, after considering the Temple guards for a moment.

"Come with us next week," Fushoku suggests happily, "Get up an hour earlier the next few mornings, since we go bright and early before the gate cracks at gozen shiji."

"Seven a.m.?" she gasps.

"Yeah, we leave Old Home around six to get there on time," Fushoku explains, "We'll take the northern path so you can see what the delta radiation is doing to the trees right next to the wall. Tiny doses, not enough to be dangerous ... Not ''yet'' anyway."

After a pause, Bangou says, "Crystal likes you, doesn't she?"

"Oh, not ''these'' ones," he grumbles at his collection of stillborn transistors.

"I mean Janice's daughter," she smiles, "and you ''know'' it. I think she's jealous of me."

"Not too much, I hope," Fushoku says, "There is very little to be jealous of. I hope she remembers that."

"She has someone close to remind her," Bangou says, "She won't forget for long, I'm sure. Let's not worry about it."

"How do you know?" Fushoku says.

"It was her mother who explained it to me, remember?" she smiles, "<<Not in front of the boys.>>"

Fushoku chuckles. After a moment, he says, "Stanley's all excited about something the Toga taught us how to make. I don't know the details, but you cook up this powder, add water, sand and gravel in specific proportions for what you want to make, pour it, and in a few hours, it turns rock solid. They call it <<concrete>>." He smiles, but there is a sadness in his eyes, "It's quaint compared to the <<stoneforge>> Aware told me about, but it's what we have."

"Why did you tell me about that?" Bangou asks.

"Oh," Fushoku takes a moment to recall, "Stanley's using it on our new factory in the East District of the main city. It'll be the first building in Glie ... I mean, the new town they're building in the centre of the wall's area. The river runs right by it, and it's only about a kilometre away from the Market Square."

"Factory?" Bangou asks.

"''Wire'' Factory," Fushoku explains, "In it, we'll be mass producing microchips. They'll be our main export for-" he pauses.

Bangou bends close. Something is wrong, and she wonders if Fushoku pulled a muscle.

"...as long as they'll survive out there," he finishes, "No matter what we do, that delta radiation will destroy them. We'll just have to do them in such a way that makes them last as long as possible."

"I have ideas about that," Bangou says warmly, "Your report describes a crystal size <<moderating>> effect which means that that smaller crystals are less affected by delta radiation." She smiles, "So we make the tiniest chips we can, add surface oxidation, and bury them in a collagen based resin that will stop the lowest energy rays."

"Why collagen?" Fushoku asks.

"Delta radiation affects animals more than plants," Bangou explains, "You know that's why we import grain and export animals. Aware told me after I showed him that triangle the Communicator drew in my notebook."

"The highest energy rays only affect larger crystals," Fushoku realizes, "so if we keep the dice small and stop the low energy rays that affect them the most..." he smiles. "The Saviour sure knows how to pick 'em," and gives her shoulder a rough shake. He thinks for a moment, and then says, "I think we should try finding something that's easier to make, since collagen is rather hard to come by. I'm thinking high density polyethylene. Keepsie's figured that stuff out, and for ''some'' reason, the Toga don't like it."

"Why?" Bangou asks.

"Apparently, it slowly evaporates, becomes brittle, and falls apart," Fushoku explains.

"Well, ''that's'' no good," Bangou complains.

Fushoku turns to her and says, "That's what it sounds like, but it doesn't do that ''in Glie.'' How long do your think your collagen resins would last absorbing delta radiation?"

Bangou smiles, "Good point."

"Best thing is," Fushoku almost cheers as he turns back to his bench and reaches into his glove box to fiddle with his grown transistors, "we can ''test'' it with these."

Next: [[Rise of Glie Chapter 31]]: They Don't Fall

[http://haibaniki.rubychan.de/wiki/Rise_of_Glie Back to Rise of Glie main directory]

Rise of Glie Chapter 28

2011-12-03T23:14:00Z

Fhd remix: Fixed oops in series episode number

[http://haibaniki.rubychan.de/wiki/Rise_of_Glie Back to Rise of Glie main directory]

Previous: [[Rise of Glie Chapter 27]]: Quest for the Blue Seed

== FHD Remix: The Rise of Glie ==

Chapter 28: Lady Number

"Hmm..." the young lady moans from the bed, her long, dark hair hidden under the blanket.

"Miss?" a young man's voice asks from the side of the bed.

"I feel like crap," she groans, "Am I in a hospital?"

"Sort of," the man answers, "It's not a hospital anymore, although in a few hours, you'll probably wish it were. What's the last thing you remember?" he asks.

"Breathing water," she says, "trying to bust out of the tank. It was almost like I was enclosed in some giant fruit. I can still taste it."

"Oh," he says, "I mean ''before'' that. I'm trying to find a name for you."

"Oh, don't be silly," she laughs, "It's ... uh ... dang."

"I'm sure we can come up with a better one than Shiimata," he laughs.

She smiles.

"It's normal for a new haibane to have this sense of having lived, but not remembering anything about it, not even her own name. Mine's Fushoku, by the way," he explains.

"Pleased to meet you," she sighs, "Did you just call me an ashfeather? Why is that?"

"Take a look. I'm one, too," he says.

The lady opens her brown eyes for the first time and sees a young teenager with little wings peering at her around his shoulders and a glowing halo hovering over his head. "That's nice," she says, "but I don't have wings or a halo, only a sore back and a fever."

"It's a start," he says with a chuckle, "Bahitsu's gone to get your halo, and your wings are growing, that's why your back hurts. If you hear a screaching little girl, that would be Kagami, who found your cocoon."

"Corrode, Horses, and Mirror?" she notes curiously, "Where do you come up with such names?"

"We are named for the dreams we had in the cocoon," he says, "That's why I'm curious about your dream."

"Numbers," she says, "My dream is about numbers ... lots and lots of numbers. I do lots of things with numbers, mostly getting unreliable machines to understand them, but my dream is all about the numbers, and-" She lifts her head and pulls her left hand out from under the pillow, looks at it momentarily, then plonks her head back down and squishes her brown eyes shut and groans. With a tear, she says, "Just call me Bangou." (番号 - Number)

"Hi, miss!" Kagami screams from the doorway, "Are you feeling okay?"

Bangou scrunches up her shoulders and eyes, but gracefully she answers, "You must be Kagami-san ... and no, I'm not feeling okay. Please keep it down."

Crystal, having lost the chase, notices just how much the young lady, apparently no older than Bahitsu, reminds her of her mother when last she had the flu, that she wonders if she's ever had kids. Impossible, she's far too young.

Kagami, in a more sensitive mood, "Ma'am, can you feel your wings yet?" she puts her hand on Bangou's back, "They should be-"

She hisses in pain, "That ''hurts,'' Kagami-san."

The girl pulls her hand back, "Sorry, ma'am," she says, then retreats, to Crystal's side.

"Bahitsu's back," Crystal says from the door.

"He'll have to wait," Fushoku replies while feeling Bangou's forehead, "Her wings are too close to coming out. I'll handle this part."

The door closes.

"Bangou-san," he says, "There's little we can do for the pain," he pulls the covers back, exposing bruised and oversized shoulder blades with the extra bones of the wings wriggling underneath. He gently sets a wet towel across her back over them. "It stings when they break through the skin," he says, "I remember my own."

She opens her eyes to see how he has his wings uncomfortably scrunched up around his shoulders in sympathetic memory.

"It's harder to watch," he says, "I think I'd rather go through it again myself than watch it happen to you. But I'm staying right here," he grunts with determination. "After they come out, you'll probably pass out. I'll wash them for you. The fever will be gone by tomorrow morning."

Crystal and Kagami have left and Bahitsu waits outside the door, listening to his friend urge the crying hatchling through the process, the splattering tear and the scream, and the crying afterwards. Once he's pretty sure that the new haibane has gone back to sleep, he goes back downstairs.

"What's her name, Bahitsu?" Kagami asks softly from the kitchen table as she and Crystal nurse bowls of rice with little bits of goose in them. Three more wait in the hope that her wings wouldn't have been in such a hurry to emerge.

"I don't know," Bahitsu says as he sits down with the halo mould in his lap, "It'll have to wait, I guess." He stares at his rice until steam quits rising from it.

Crystal piles some more on top, "Fushoku doesn't want his, and Bangou is still sleeping. It's quite a mess up there," she says.

"Oh," Bahitsu says, and finally starts eating. That he's hungry is quite a discovery.

Upstairs, as evening approaches, Bangou stirs. After wincing, she groans, "My God ... I feel them, the wings. They're ''real?''"

"Yes, Bangou-san," Fushoku answers, "they are real." He continues to wash them.

"Why do you keep calling me Bangou-san? My name is-" she hits that barrier in her mind again.

"Would you prefer Bangou-kun?" Fushoku asks.

He laughs at her smile. It's obvious she would have laughed if it didn't hurt so much.

"I'm thirsty," she moans.

"Have some water then," Fushoku points out the glass of water on the meal tray beside her.

Her wing strains against Fushoku as she reaches for it, slips through his hands and spreads to its modest span.

"That feels so," she starts, then lifts her wing, winces, and the glass of water slips from her hand and falls to the floor, "It hurts. I'm sorry." She relaxes her wing and looks over the edge of the bed to look for it. Suddenly she notices that the room looks like a bomb had gone off, "What happened here?"

"Oh?" Fushoku replies, looking around, "That was your cocoon, we'll fix it up. You can have any room you like, but we figure you'll probably want this one because of its location ... or maybe the next one," he thumbs, "to get a little further away from Kagami."

"That little hell-raiser you referred to," she smiles, "Typical of that age, they can't always predict when they will hurt somebody, but she means well. I'm sure she's learned."

"You've had kids," Fushoku says.

It wasn't a question, she notes. Why should it be? But as natural as it seems to Bangou to have had children, she can't remember any.

"I can see it in your eyes," Fushoku clarifies, "They look like Janice's."

"Janice," she notes, "sounds like a ''proper'' name."

"Of course," Fushoku chuckles, "She's human. Crystal's mom. Crystal's my age, if you get my meaning. She's fourteen, I'm two."

"I get it," she says, "How old is Kagami?"

"One year," Fushoku answers, "She's growing. She found your cocoon as a seed and didn't tell anybody until yesterday morning. She's been watching it grow for ten months."

"Sure doesn't feel like ten months," Bangou moans, "A previous life I remember in my dreams, but seems just out of my grasp. I'm still thirsty by the way. Could you please refill that. I won't drop it again, I promise."

Fushoku is about to leave the room with the glass when she asks, "Where are you going?"

"To refill the water," he says, "You'll be okay for a minute, right?"

"Oh, it's not that," she tries to point, but decides to nod her head instead, "There's a sink right over there."

"Oh," Fushoku seems to notice it for the first time, "Oh, yeah. We haven't got power for Old Home's water pumps. It's a long story, I can explain when I get back."

"Psst," Bahitsu signals from down the hall, "What's her name?"

"Oh," Fushoku says, "It's Bangou, I'll think you'll like her."

"Oh," he blushes, "Crystal mentioned it earlier. Hungry yet?" he asks.

"Starving," Fushoku replies, "and exhausted, I only got two hours of sleep last night before she busted out."

"Good!" Bahitsu says playfully. This instantly signals to Fushoku that Bahitsu had an ulterior motive in asking if he was hungry, which Bahitsu reveals as Fushoku reaches for the one working faucet over the one working sink in all of Old Home, "That means ''she's'' doing well."

Fushoku shakes his head at Bahitsu's insufferable wit as he heads back to the table to share the good news with Crystal and Kagami.

Heading back upstairs, Fushoku is surprised to discover a hand mirror at the head of Bangou's bed, and she's raptly playing with her grey feathers with its help.

Fushoku quickly sets the water on the meal tray and grabs the cloth to clean the fresh blood from her back, "Go easy on them, Bangou-san, he urges. It takes a few days for them to heal up from breaking out." Checking her forehead, he notes, "Your fever's coming down already, that's good."

"They ... won't stay so stiff, then, right?" she says, "When can I start flying?"

"Oh, uh," Fushoku blushes, "They're not big enough to fly with."

"Chicken," she chuckles.

Fushoku gets it quickly, even though it's not a joke Bahitsu's ever uttered: the chicken is an example of a bird with wings too small and weak to fly with.

"I'm sure one day we'll have a haibane someone'll call <<Hiyoko>>," Fushoku replies. [Note: This is in homage to a scene in ''Haibane Renmei'' Episode 7.]

Next: [[Rise of Glie Chapter 29]]: The Last Place On Earth, Period.

[http://haibaniki.rubychan.de/wiki/Rise_of_Glie Back to Rise of Glie main directory]

Rise of Glie Chapter 27

2011-12-03T23:03:25Z

Fhd remix: Assassinated a typo

[http://haibaniki.rubychan.de/wiki/Rise_of_Glie Back to Rise of Glie main directory]

Previous: [[Rise of Glie Chapter 26]]: The Engine

== FHD Remix: The Rise of Glie ==

Chapter 27: Quest for the Blue Seed

Fushoku advances timidly through the Temple's garden, noting how fast the trees grow. They have grown tremendously since the last time he was in here, which was when he picked up his notebook last year.

His bells ring a little bit with each pace.

Two of the Toga in the Haibane Renmei, with their square masks and wooden wings, slowly wander through the garden, as though counting the leaves on the trees.

As soon as he catches sight of the Communicator, he starts to use his voice, but catches himself, and rings the bells on his wrists to get his attention.

Washi gets up from his desk with a box and approaches Fushoku without the aid of his cane. "Haibane Fushoku, have you seen the crows?" he asks.

Fushoku flaps his right wing.

"They bring us things that we've lost, or things that we need," he explains, "They can't carry much at once, so usually they bring things that are small. One looking out for you," Fushoku suddenly notes his presence in the tree next to Washi's desk, "brought a large thing in small pieces over many trips." Washi offers Fushoku a box, "It is something you've been asking for from everyone except me, which I find troubling since I'm the most likely person within this wall who would have such a thing, although I did not, until now."

Fushoku takes the box, which has his kanji names carefully engraved on the lid. He unties the string holding the lid, and slides it open. In it, he finds a paper, and pulling it out with his right hand, carefully unfolds the top flap of beautifully handwritten document. He gasps:

--------

Effects of Delta Radiation on Semiconductor Electronics:

1. General Description
2. Atomic Transformations
3. Crystal Lattice Moderation Effect
4. Fab Protection Practices
5. Proposed Logic and Layout Techniques
6. Finished Package Strategies
....

--------

"Certain chapters have been left out," Washi explains, "Since delta radiation never occurs within Glie any more. The wall has done a very good job of protecting us."

"Who wrote this?" Fushoku asks.

"Ssh," Washi says softly, "I have not given you permission to speak. I wrote what you are holding. The author, or authors, of the original material are not known to me. It was brought to me in tiny shreds that I had to reconstruct. I don't even know if they're from one document, or book, or might even be from different parts of the world. Everything you need, is in there," he points.

Fushoku bows, and then makes his exit.

Washi turns to the crow and signs, "Thank you. You should go now. I appreciate you showing yourself to him."

As the crow starts to fly away, the Communicator calls, "Wait. I have one question."

The crow comes back to land on Washi's desk and looks up at him with deep curiosity.

"Why do you want to help our worst enemy get their computing power back?" Washi asks cautiously, "It is safer for all of us if they do not have such capabilities."

The crow taps on a drawer in the desk's hutch. Somehow the crow knew where his original shreds were.

As soon as the drawer is open he jumps into it and starts digging through the chapter on "Atomic Transformations". He pulls up the one shred Washi left out of the document he gave Fushoku because it was the only shred that connected with nothing else to form an idea. On it was typed in English parts of two lines.

--------

...carbon is unaffected ... proposed diamond cry-...

--------

The crow taps the word "diamond" and then vigorously flaps his left wing, blowing shreds of the original documents all over the garden.

"They're planning to use artificial diamonds to create electronics that would be completely unaffected by delta radiation," the Communicator realizes.

The crow extends his right wing.

"Having us build silicon electronics for them can prevent that?" Washi asks.

The crow nods.

"Finally, I know why the Saviour sent us Fushoku," the Communicator sighs.

Fushoku decides to take the adventurous new road home to Stone Mill instead of the safer high road. At this time it is quite adventurous because the anticipated "catwalk" ledge does not yet exist. Stonecutters work on the face of the cliff above, what used to be flood mud securely cured into a single, gargantuan brick they are dicing much as he recalls the process in his dreams, of slicing up the gigantic silicon crystal into tiny chips. He borrows a harness, clips onto the rope wrapped around the "mountain" and crawls across the bare rock face. After that is the rope bridge, which consists of one rope overhead for your harness and hands, and another for your feet ... intermittently in Fushoku's case, with the waterfall in spitting distance and routinely spitting on the bridge and its occupants. On the other side, the soaking wet haibane unclips, crawls out of the harness, and decides not to do that again for at least another year.

Once back at Stone Mill, Crystal is there, tending little Kagami, as usual. Crystal says, "You're late, Master Fushoku," with a smile.

Kagami, who was bouncing around in the dandilion puffs, retreats to Crystal's side on seeing him. A haibane for a year now, her blonde hair has grown out quite beautifully, and she has also grown quite a bit taller. The pair of playful pigtails frames a timid smile.

Stanley and Keepsie come up to him.

"Uh oh," Fushoku says nervously. He and Bahitsu have just overhauled their fourth engine, and figure they have probably come to claim it like they did the first three, one of which runs faithfully in Jabez's woodworking shop, and the other two chug along at the edge of the shrinking lake, pumping it out. "Please let us keep this one," he begs, "At least until we've done the second wind generator."

"Sorry," Stanley says, "but the good news is that Jabez will be trading his old one in, and you get to keep that one."

Fushoku can tell there's more, and jealously clutches his little box with the folded up delta radiaton report.

"Feather Fushoku, on behalf of the community of Glie," Keepsie begins with a tear, "We seek your approval of the plans for a third haibane nest in the pending East District of the town of Glie, near the river, well downstream and not too far from the Great Gate."

"These are the plans for the four storey Wire Factory," Stanley says, "Please go over them and tell us what you think."

"Thank you," Fushoku says as he takes the building plans.

As the wet haibane turns to head to the bath, Stanley asks, "Did you ever get the information you needed about the radiation effects?"

"Oh," Fushoku says, "It's right here," holding up his little wooden box.

"I'm glad," Keepsie says, then they turn back to the human camp.

Kagami is back to stalking her dandilions.

Fushoku sees her behaviour as rather curious. She's apparently taken quite an interest in dandilions recently. He crouches and asks, "Whatcha doin', Kagami-san?"

"I'm trying to find a blue seed," she says. Apparently she's on a serious quest for one among the many thousands of tiny gray dandilion seeds in this single acre of unkempt lawn.

"Why blue?" he asks.

"'Cus they grow ''really'' big," she giggles, "The one in the room next to mine is already ''this'' big!" she holds her arms wide.

Fushoku is so shocked he has trouble keeping his feet, "How long ago did you find it, Kagami-san?"

"Last fall," she says.

It is August, Fushoku realizes. He rises to his full height and nervously squeaks, "Crystal."

"Yes, what's wrong?" she asks.

"Hurry back to Old Home and check the rooms on the floor Kagami sleeps for haibane cocoons," he says.

"Could they just sprout up anywhere?" Crystal asks in an exasperated tone, "How ever do we find them in such a huge place?" She hurries off.

Fushoku crouches again and says to the nervous little girl, "It's alright, you're going to have a new friend. It's real, right, not made-up?" he asks.

"Oh, yes," Kagami says, "In the room next to mine. It grew so big I had to move the bed out of its way."

"Please tell Crystal if you find any more," Fushoku says, "Now go show her this one, I'm sure she'll be amazed."

Kagami easily catches up with her on the way back to Old Home.

Someone touches Fushoku's shoulder and he jumps in startlement. He turns to see Aware standing there, wet. As Fushoku realizes that Aware's wet from his own jump, the elder haibane asks, "Boy or girl?"

"Boy, I hope," Bahitsu snorts from Stone Mill's entrance.

Next: [[Rise of Glie Chapter 28]]: Lady Number

[http://haibaniki.rubychan.de/wiki/Rise_of_Glie Back to Rise of Glie main directory]

Rise of Glie Chapter 24

2011-12-03T22:00:34Z

Fhd remix: Re-upload, originally loaded wrong chapter (eeeek!) Lol at "show changes"

[http://haibaniki.rubychan.de/wiki/Rise_of_Glie Back to Rise of Glie main directory]

Previous [[Rise of Glie Chapter 23]]: Reestablished

== FHD Remix: The Rise of Glie ==

Chapter 24: Growth

"Try it," Washi asks gently, "try moving one wing at a time."

Kagami moves one of her wings instead of both. The bells on her right wing ring.

"That means yes," Washi says, "Now try the other."

Kagami rings the bells on her left wing.

"That means no," the Communicator says, "Very good, Kagami-kun." He reaches around with his new walking stick, not yet adorned with the little winged ball, and taps his own, wooden left wing, "I wish I could do that."

Kagami squeals gleefully.

As the Communicator approaches, pulling a grey notebook from his robe's pocket, Kagami gets scared, and backs into Aware's legs. Her bells ring muffled as her wings press against the elder haibane.

"It's okay, Kagami," Aware whispers, "He's not going to hurt you."

Washi kneels, bringing his face to her height. It provides her little comfort, since she can't see it through the strange mask. In fact, she seems to get more scared.

"This," he offers the grey notebook in both hands, "makes you the ''first'' member of the new Ashfeather Federation who is actually an ashfeather," he explains, "it guarantees your daily life in exchange for your service to our community."

"Service?" she asks.

"Once you're big enough," Washi says.

"What's your name, sir?" she asks.

"No one is allowed to know," Washi says softly, but dutifully, "So don't tell anyone. Since Aware's my closest friend, and ''you'' are special among the haibane, being the first girl and youngest hatchling since the battle twenty four years ago, I'll make an exception. First, please," he almost touches the notebook against her chest, "this is ''yours.''"

It has the T-handle symbol of the Haibane Renmei, its name in kanji, and her name on the cover. Slowly, she takes it.

The Washi reaches up and lifts his hood and mask, revealing a face wrinkled by smiles, but with a note of deep sadness in his eyes, "My name is Shiden. I lost my wings. Take good care of yours," he chides, "They can never be taken from you."

"Thank you, Shi-"

"Sssssh," he interrupts with a finger over his own lips, "Remember, you're not allowed to know."

Kagami retreats behind her friend Aware as Shiden stands. "Aware, she ''will'' remember more than she has told you, that's the Saviour's promise," he puts a hand on his friend's shoulder, "Get her a human friend. A woman, probably Crystal. When it hits, be there, but be sensitive. You won't understand it."

"Do you?" Aware asks

"No, none of us ever will," Shiden replies, "But I know from my own experience that you will not let her down."

"I will do my best," Aware quietly promises.

Shiden steps backwards two paces, then pulls his mask and his hood back into position, formally becoming the Communicator again, "Send the rest of the haibane for their official notebooks, one per day except Saturday, Haibane Aware ... in any order that you see fit. Farewell."

"Why?" Aware asks.

"Farewell, Haibane Aware," Washi says, almost coldly.

--------

"I started stamping coins for Glie," Bahitsu explains happily, handing him one of the shining examples as they walk along the path to the Temple cliff the next day, "How does it look?"

"The haibane aren't allowed to own money," Aware says.

"It's not mine," Bahitsu says, "I make several before giving them to Stanley. It's slow going, of course, and I'm teaching Haoto and a couple of the human boys how to run the press so they can take over."

The obverse contains a faithful reproduction of the Haibane Renmei T-handle logo, while the reverse has the simple numeral "1" on it.

"So what's the currency unit?" Aware asks.

"I don't know," Bahitsu says like it's no big deal, "They haven't decided what to call it yet."

Tossing it back, Aware says, "Well, that explains the notebooks."

"Notebooks?" Bahitsu asks.

Aware spends the rest of the long trip explaining the new Haibane Renmei, including the new wing bells.

The Washi goes through the relatively simple procedure of welcoming Bahitsu to the Haibane Renmei and giving him his new notebook, and on the way back, they discuss Fushoku's plans for a new crystal furnace, designed to produce a junctioned transistor crystal 15mm in diameter and 5mm long using what they have no idea is called the Czolchalski process.

"I can tell Fushoku is looking forward to having his vacuums drawn by electrical power instead of his arms," Bahitsu goes on, "Pulling that pump all day must be exhausting."

"Why does he want to make them bigger?" Aware asks, "I thought his goal was to make them thousands of times smaller."

"Well," Bahitsu explains, "once he gets the furnace working, that'll be the easy part. The tough part is slicing up the big crystal into many small ones. He'll use a diamond dusted saw blade from the Toga."

"Sounds like something Jabez would be interested in," Aware says, remembering the "nothing new" rule for the haibane.

"Oh, it is, it is," Bahitsu says, "and he buys them for us. He uses them to cut one rafter on the fancy mitre chop saw he got from the Toga, then says <<There, it's used.>>"

They laugh at the arrangement. Bahitsu then goes on, "Fushoku doesn't think it's so funny actually, he insists the residual dust from the wood will ruin the transistors." Aware already knows that Fushoku had made a motor for the saw blades, and I contributed some of the parts to it. The clamp for the crystal and the tongs for removing the cut pieces will be carefully polished."

"The quality of the original saw blades must really matter," Aware observes.

"They were designed for cutting microchips," Bahitsu says, "Fushoku says it's the same kind of thing that he's trying to make. Oh, I'm so glad they're getting along."

Aware follows his eye to Kagami, who's dancing around Crystal, the much larger human. One would guess their ages at five and thirteen years. The latter would be correct, but the former would need to be amended to five ''days.'' Aware notes that her wings are moving comfortably as she plays, and her halo is faithfully following her head.

"She can't stand boys, especially human boys," Bahitsu complains, "She won't even say hi to us. Do you have any idea why?"

"No," Aware says, "but my instinct tells me that it is not her fault."

"Can't she just ''choose'' to like us?" Bahitsu asks, "Like I can choose to like or not like you?"

"I don't know," Aware says, remembering his choice to like Shiden even after his abuse shattered his soul in those early days. He speculates, "Maybe there's a point a soul can be damaged beyond where one can make the choice to like someone." Aware remembers how hard it was to make that choice. Far more vaguely, he remembers that his precursor made that choice to like someone quite easily and that like went on for his entire life. Perhaps he was what the humans call "married". He wonders if there is an opposite.

Kagami instantly cowers behind Crystal when she notices Bahitsu and Aware returning from the Temple.

To make casual conversation and show Kagami that these are her friends, Crystal asks, "Why can't Washi issue all of the notebooks at once?"

"He has to ''make'' them," Aware answers easily, "Bahitsu and I snuck up on him, since we're not allowed to talk in there before he allows us to. We caught him drying the paper for Haoto's notebook."

"Hi, Kagami-san," Bahitsu says.

"Oh," Kagami says, "Hi, angel-boy!" she squeals.

After the two haibane pass on, rejoining the other angel-boys hard at work building the first wind turbine generator, Crystal turns her gaze west and shades her eyes from the setting sun to look at the men hard at work digging the foundation for the first generator tower on the Hill of Winds. How are they going to get that thing up there? She crouches for Kagami, brushes her bangs away from her eyes, then asks, "Why do the boys scare you, Kagami-san?"

"I don't know," Kagami says, "They just do. The angels ... ''haibane'' are okay, but them," she looks nervously over at the men of the camp half a kilometre away, "I don't know."

"It's okay," Crystal assures her, "There's no need to be scared, but if you can't help it, that's okay."

"Washi said my wings can never be taken from me," Kagami says, "yet he lost his own, what is that about?"

After a pause, Crystal answers slowly, "Kagami-san, I haven't the faintest idea."

[Author's Note: Shiden is aware of the rules of the much larger ''featherwings of love'', which would be destroyed by the crimes committed against Kagami's precursor.]

Next: [[Rise of Glie Chapter 25]]: A Second Chance

[http://haibaniki.rubychan.de/wiki/Rise_of_Glie Back to Rise of Glie main directory]

Rise of Glie Chapter 22

2011-12-03T21:33:56Z

Fhd remix: Sniped two typos.

[http://haibaniki.rubychan.de/wiki/Rise_of_Glie Back to Rise of Glie main directory]

Previous: [[Rise of Glie Chapter 21]]: Cold Dawn

== FHD Remix: The Rise of Glie ==

Chapter 22: A Troubled Youngster

It is spring. The first warm day of spring. Old Home still looks like the university/hospital it once was. Aware took the relatively risky job of going up onto the roof to push snow. Today he felt like going on a stroll through the halls of the east wing. Just for the heck of it, checking each room for the first time in an entire year. After opening this one he stops dead and drops his flashlight.

After realizing the significance of what he sees, he looks about, and notes that this must be the children's ward. The third floor, he suddenly remembers. How long? How long? He frets, fidgeting nervously. How long has it been here? How long does it have to go?

The five foot tall cocoon gives him the worst possible answer: it starts to turn from the pale blue of growth to the warm grey of hatching time.

"Crap!" he blurts out loud. Realizing that its occupant might have heard him, he says to it, "I'll be right back." He picks up his flashlight and runs out. As he gets to the kitchen downstairs he almost crashes into Bahitsu, "I thought you were working at Stone Mill," he gasps.

"Oh," Bahitsu says, as though that was the last thing he expected Aware to say, "Uh, the generator ... we put it in the stream today-"

"We haven't opened the valve to the river," Aware says quickly.

"The snow melting is providing enough flow," Bahitsu says, "but I'm here because the Communicator sent me."

"I was just on my way to see him," Aware says, "What'd he say?"

"<<Take this to Old Home,>>" Bahitsu pulls from his bag what looks like a frying pan wrapped in grey cloth, "<<''Hurry!''>>"

"The halo mould?" Aware gasps, "looks like you did all the rushing for me."

The two exchanges smiles. Aware starts gathering bedding, "It's still pretty cold up there. And he's going to be wet when he comes out."

"Oh?" Bahitsu asks. He hadn't realized what he was carrying back from the Temple, when he does, he starts squealing excitedly, "A cocoon? A new haibane? A new feather companion?" He jumps up and down, "Oh my!"

Despite the adult's rushed pace, Bahitsu has enough energy to run circles around him all the way to the third floor. Aware has trouble finding it again, checking in three rooms before encountering it.

When they get there, the warm grey cocoon has a crack in it already.

"The cocoons always are larger than this," Aware says, "Why is this one so small?"

"Don't ask ''me!''" Bahitsu whines, "''You're'' the elder." Bahitsu soon finds himself holding everything while Aware kneels in front of the cocoon.

After a couple of minutes, the cocoon's side busts open with several large pieces. A child bursts out with a large splash. Aware picks him up immediately. He can't be older than five years physically, with a few inches of blonde hair and the typical white hatching robe.

He squirts up the cocoon fluid and groggily feels about as Aware wipes his face with the towel Bahitsu just handed him. His cheeks are unusually high and round. The newborn squints and starts bawling, "Mommy! Mommy!" in a startlingly high pitch. His eyes are wet again instantly after Aware wipes them off. He curls up helplessly in Aware's arms and passes out.

"He's odd," Aware says quietly.

Seeing the way the hatching robe has settled between the newborn's legs, Bahitsu has the explanation for this haibane's unusual characteristics, "She's a ''girl!''"

"That can't be," Aware says, then, after a moment, realizes that he must be right.

It is very surprising, since Aware had seen seven haibane hatch before this one, and, adding his own, all had been older teenage boys.

Roku, the would-be hero of the battle, was a girl. Why should he be so surprised? He turns to Bahitsu and asks sheepishly, "Uh, could you go to Janice's please? ... We have nothing for her to wear."

"Um ... yeah," Bahitsu nervously answers, and then takes off. It is unusual for him to utter such a response; he always has some way of spicing it up with sarcasm or, on occasion, another form of humor (when answering Shiden, he'd often say, "Back in a flash!") Bahitsu's energy seems to know some bounds after all.

Aware lays her gently on the room's bed, in a recovery position. Even in her sleep, she still cries softly. Four hours pass with her in this state, Aware guarding her. She pulls her hands up near her face, contorts her eyes into a grimace and leaps into wakefulness with a blood curdling scream.

"It's alright, it's alright," Aware assures the little girl, "You're safe here."

He finally sees her eyes are brown, full of fear and dread. "Da-" she starts to utter, then relief fills her face as she looks around, seeing his wings and halo. She leaps on him in embrace and bawls, "Angels! ''Finally.'' At last, it's over ... it's finally over."

Aware softly comforts by far the most troubled hatchling he's ever heard of, "Haibane," he says, "Ashfeather. You're one of us now."

"Really?" she asks, pulling away out of the hug and looking him over to make sure he's really there, and that the wings and halo are really there.

"Really," he says, "Your wings will grow soon, and I have your halo right here. Are you ready for it?"

Anticipation fills her eyes as she sits squeemishly on the edge of the bed, watching him open the halo mould, revealing the glowing ring inside, reveling in the moment as he picks it up with the tongs.

"Careful, it's hot," he warns, "you mustn't touch it until it has taken its hold."

"Okay," she says softly, gratefully.

Aware extends his hand slowly over his head, holding the halo in the tongs. "Feather - oh," he realizes, "Well, the name can wait. Welcome to the Ashfeather Federation, may this halo be a guide to your journey here." He measures the lift upon the halo before letting it go, assured that it won't drop on her head.

The girl starts giggling, "It tickles!" It rotates about and revolves around the crown of her head in an elegant libration pattern. "Oh, thank you, Mr. Angel," she says with a grateful smile. Her face stretches as she comes to understand what he has said about it, "My ... ''journey'' here? Isn't this heaven?"

"No, sweetie," he says warmly, "We're not sure what it is exactly, but it is ''our'' world, and we are quite happy for it. Welcome to Old Home.

"What was your dream about?" he asks, then indicates her cocoon, "I mean ''before'' you hatched?"

She seems relieved that he amended the question, rather than asking her to share the obviously painful nightmare that she had woken from in the bed.

"I don't remember anything about that dream right now," she says softly, honestly.

"We are named by the dream we had in the cocoon," Aware says, "My dream was of a sad world, upon which the first of a new type of bomb was dropped. I met a friend, a companion in this world who emerged ten years before I did. It took a while, but we found that we were both different people in the same dream. His name was Flash, after the brilliance of the bomb exploding. My name is Sorrow, after the sad world in which we lived."

"Kanashii-san?" she tries tentatively.

"The other way of saying it," Aware clarifies.

"Aware-san," she says softly, "Thank you for bringing me here."

Aware takes her small hands and clarifies, "I didn't bring you here. You were brought here by the One who made the world."

Next: [[Rise of Glie Chapter 23]]: Reestablished

[http://haibaniki.rubychan.de/wiki/Rise_of_Glie Back to Rise of Glie main directory]

Rise of Glie Chapter 19

2011-12-03T21:05:18Z

Fhd remix: Next chapter title fixed

[http://haibaniki.rubychan.de/wiki/Rise_of_Glie Back to Rise of Glie main directory]

Previous: [[Rise of Glie Chapter 18]]: Down the Tubes

== FHD Remix: The Rise of Glie ==

Chapter 19: Return of the Crow

Feather Fushoku, sit down, the teacher orders gruffly.

"Am I in trouble?" the timid blonde haired boy asks as he takes his seat, "You're not going to make me quit my experiments, I hope." He's obviously expecting that news.

The teacher reveals what he's hiding in his hand and sets it in front of the boy, "Is that a transistor?"

"No, teacher," Fushoku says instantly, "It does the same thing, but they work in completely different ways."

"Can you test it to see how similar it is to your devices?"

Fushoku carefully taps a finger on the vacuum tube to make sure it is not hot, and then takes it in his hand, quickly looks at the base and sets it back down. "No, its operating voltage is thirty times what my battery can generate. Is that the best that the er ... traders have?"

"Perhaps," Aware says from the door, "Sorry, I'm late, but the humans have first dibs on ''everything,'' and half the town wanted to try getting this thing to work." Aware sets the other device in front of him.

Fushoku seems to recognize it at some level, tries the buttons. "Impressive," he says sarcastically.

"It's been like that ever since-" Aware's seeing something totally new. Fushoku has begun to take it apart, and the screen no longer glows, but is a flat black. "It's a battery," he says of the part that he took off, "This part of it must still work." When he puts it back together, the screen lights up, "Look, it's a different pattern." It still does not respond to the buttons.

"The Toga told us that it has failed," Aware says, "Can you tell us what it is?"

"Some sort of mobile radio," Fushoku says, "You'd hail somebody by using the keys here; using his name or number. It's probably supported by a network of beacon towers so that it doesn't need to use as much power or carry as big of an antenna or battery to reach far places. I think I can get it open without doing too much damage." Fushoku's tone turns to one of warning, "It is very unlikely that opening will do it good and not harm."

"If it had any hope of working, I'm sure the Toga wouldn't have given it to us for free," Aware says before he stares at it in anticipation, believing Etch would work some sort of magic with his bare fingers to dismantle it.

Instead he whistles, then yells, "Hey, Bahitsu!" then dips his finger in the wax at the edge of a candle, presses it into a small circular opening.

The red-haired teenage boy comes barrelling in enthusiastically.

"Aware brought this from the Toga, but I need a screwdriver to get it open," Fushoku explains as he pulls out his little wax template. "It'll need more of a handle."

Bahitsu claps his heels together, salutes by raising his right hand to his eyebrow with his elbow stretched, "''Yes,'' Master Fushoku," he says, takes the wax template and runs off.

"It'll be ready tomorrow afternoon," Fushoku explains with a blush, "For all his preaching on fire safety and efficiency," Fushoku explains to Aware, "Bahitsu is always proving that he can horse around."

"How many transistors do you have?" Aware asks.

"I don't know," Fushoku responds, "I know I have one wired up as a transistor, but I don't know if it works as one. Including that one, I have two working diodes." Aware shows him the two devices.

"I wonder if they will interest the Toga next week?" Aware says, "The Toga said that they can't make these any more," indicating the small radio, "and that soon everything will need to be made with these."

"I can't yet guess how many transistors this thing might have," Fushoku says, "but it is certainly more than a dozen even if it doesn't belong to a network, but is a simple receiver."

"Washi said twenty billion," Aware says.

"Oh," Fushoku says quietly, "That's ... a lot." He does not seem surprised, however.

"Do you think we can match that?" Aware asks.

"It'll take a couple decades at least," Fushoku explains, "but as Teacher Shoukai knows very well," he curls up the edge of his lips, "I was ''born'' for this."

--------

"I haven't seen a crow since the battle," the Communicator grumbles, "so why would an entire murder of crows suddenly fly in here and start making a fuss?"

He has no one to ask except the crows themselves, and the dozen or so crows that up until that moment had been squawking up a storm all around him, jumping from tree to young tree in the garden, instantly are all silent.

The Communicator had spoken.

He notes they all cock their heads curiously, they have a brilliance in their eyes somehow. One peeps, and suddenly they all caw in unison, like a skilled corvid choir.

Washi is startled. The crows seem to recognize this, and closer ones fly to more distant branches. He cautiously says, "Did you want me to speak?"

The closest looks at his neighbor, and his neighbour looks back, then both tilt their heads back slightly and huff. Washi thinks they might have shared a joke somehow. Can't be, crows are smart, but not ''that'' smart, and they certainly aren't telepathic.

Washi's desk was the one Jabez made for Kasei, which was inherited by Stanley. Washi is not sure how it got in the temple, but he likes it. He gets upset when he sees a crow standing on it, "Get off my desk, you filthy scavenger!"

The way the crow looks up at him, as almost to say, "Filthy? Who are you calling ''filthy?''"

Washi slams his hand down on the desk next to the crow, who merely steps away. As he brings his hand down ''on'' the crow, he spreads his wings and flies a couple feet along the desk.

The crow notices himself next to the quill pen and its bottle, quickly reaches over his shoulder, takes a secondary off his left wing and smartly stuffs the black feather it into the ink bottle next to the much larger brown feather from a canned goose, then flies away. The Communicator notes that the corresponding feather on his right wing was already missing. Must be how they molt.

The quill pen is a symbol of scholarship! How dare a lowly crow-

The Washi suddenly realizes that there must be more to these crows than "lowly scavenger". He finds a fallen black feather, takes out a small knife and prepares it for writing. The one that is in the ink bottle is useless because it lacks the all-important slit in its tip that makes it usable as a pen. He discards that feather, and with his new crow feather pen, dips in the ink and writes 今日 ("Hello") in Japanese on a piece of paper.

The crow that was on his desk before returns by landing on the hutch. Washi offers it the feather pen. The crow is tentative, not sure what to do. He carefully glides to the desk, next to the paper, and finally takes the feather. He struggles to cut the feather about two centimetres from the tip. Once done, he tries to get it onto a toe.

He seems scared of Washi's hands as he slowly reaches out for the crow. "Let me help," the Communicator offers gently. The crow lets Washi help out. Indeed, the crow is quite clean, leaving none of the greasy residue suggested by the eerie lustre of its feathers. The Communicator drops some ink on the edge of the page, and asks, "So, how smart are you ''really?''"

It's quite a struggle for the crow to write, but write he does, and Washi's drooping jaw can be seen even around the strange mask as the kanji character 間 emerges from the crow's quixotic effort at communication.

''Human!''

"How can you do that?" Washi gasps.

The crow squawks as though offended, fluffs up its feathers and slowly reaches his head down, then pecks at the paper twice, right in the middle of the character with its jet-black bill.

"Human?"

The crow nods.

He then struggles to write another Japanese word 紫電, which shocks the Communicator even more.

''Flash.''

How does it know my name?

The crow then reaches over his back and pulls from his feathers two tiny shreds of paper, tucked in his feathers in the way a lovebird collects its nesting. He then flies away, whacking his feet against a branch to free his toe of the pen.

Another crow lands, delivers two shreds of paper and flies away. Another, and another, until each and every crow present has had its turn, leaving the Communicator piecing together twenty eight pieces of paper. Each has been carefully torn along the line of English text. The Communicator traces the cut edges, and reconstructs part of a letter from twenty of the pieces.

[Author's note: Jose, a lovebird at Modern 988 hair in Dragon City Mall downtown, can completely destroy a section of the Calgary Herald in a matter of hours for her nesting box.]

--------

To: Erebus, Defense Commander
From: Osteune, Your Humble Servant

My report on the spread of delta vector and the destruction of computers around the world.

--------

Washi reads the other eight pieces, which read "changes atoms of crystalline germanium into gallium ... silicon into aluminum"

"Human smarts, perhaps, but I'm pretty sure you must eat like crows," Washi says, "You may have the next rabbit that falls into my snare, if you get me the rest of this report."

Every crow takes off and flies out of the temple's open roof as though startled.

Next: [[Rise of Glie Chapter 20]]: Window to the World

[http://haibaniki.rubychan.de/wiki/Rise_of_Glie Back to Rise of Glie main directory]

Rise of Glie Chapter 18

2011-12-03T20:55:23Z

Fhd remix: Next chapter title fixed

[http://haibaniki.rubychan.de/wiki/Rise_of_Glie Back to Rise of Glie main directory]

Previous: [[Rise of Glie Chapter 17]]: Bawling and Screaming

== FHD Remix: The Rise of Glie ==

Chapter 18: Down the Tubes

"Wow," Janice says as she watches Aware come down the road from the Temple with the Communicator.

Janice and Stanley rush up to the edge of the camp and bow. "Welcome to Glie, Communicator," they say, then start making introductions.

He is unable to bow in return due to the lingering pain in his back, but looks about. The river has been restored to its original course, but otherwise everything looks the same as it did when he left. He has other big changes than himself to notice. The raging river under the treacherous rope bridge has been reduced to a tranquil trickle. He figures it would be somewhat more romantic, and far easier on his legs, to move the path and bridge downstream of the waterfall, so he doesn't have to climb all the way to the top of the cliff, and back down, to get to town. Aware's certainly getting his exercise in visiting him every day.

"So, Communicator," Janice asks respectfully, "What news from outside?"

Stanley gives her a cautioning look.

"Not much, I'm afraid," the Communicator croaks, "The Toga do not discuss anything about their trading partners. They don't say anything about us to them, which is fine and well. But likewise, they don't tell us anything about them. All you really need to know my lady," he pauses for a breath, "is that it's a far happier life in here than it is out there."

"Hello, sir," the young blonde haibane boy says, "I have something we can offer the Toga," he proffers a rather malignant looking contraption about the size of a wine grape, but with three burnt wires emerging from it. "It's supposed to be a transistor," the boy explains, "but I have no way to test it. I know it works as a diode, since it'll let the power from my battery flow one way through it, but not the other."

The Communicator has his memories of the advanced technology of Haibi. "Not today, I'm afraid," he responds, handing it back to the boy. "Haibane Fushoku, it is unlikely that the Toga won't already have something much better than that already. Keep working though, I'm sure we'll need such things, if only for our own purposes."

The boy seems a little disappointed, but the dark haired girl his age, without wings, races up to him and says, "I got them to stick together, they might be magnets, come see."

"Middle Age Electronics Incorporated," the Communicator says to Aware and Stanley as the children excitedly run off, "I wonder what the Toga will think that we've fallen so far."

"The humans are working on some more practical ideas," Stanley points, "Jabez is working on a drive shaft to try to get the river to help pump the water out of the lake. Just for our own purposes, I'm afraid we really don't have anything to offer the Toga."

"We need to push the water from the lake to the river, since that's about twenty metres height," Aware explains.

"And he'd have some rather predictable NPSH problems if he put the pump at the top," the Communicator says, "I thought a chain would work better," he speculates.

"Jabez doesn't want this beautiful fallen tree to go to waste though," Stanley says, "I think this is just his excuse to preserve it." Stanley gently puts a hand on the Communicator's shoulder, "I've been around a while, sir, and every haibane I've ever seen Fly has done so with a distinctive flower of light, but one."

The Communicator is tense, but polite.

"His name is Shiden, and if he's still around within these walls, and you find him," Stanley says, "Tell him that Stanley says he's sorry. He'll know why."

The Communicator does not reply. Stanley removes his hand from his shoulder.

"Aware, I'd best be getting back," the Communicator croaks.

Aware leans close and whispers, "I've set you up with a hiding spot so you don't need to climb that mountain twice more," then openly says, "The Haibane of Old Home would ''love'' a visit from the Communicator, first. Please, sir."

It isn't a long trip to Old Home. He finds Fushoku under the teacher's watchful eye, literally playing with fire. The Communicator notes that the pump Fushoku is operating is not blowing on the fire, that he is struggling on the upstroke. He follows the metal tubing to discern that it leads to the heart of the fire, which is in a skillfully built hearth made from pieces of the Deployment monument that was once in the centre of the courtyard. The fire blows itself quite fine, doubtless the work of Bahitsu, the haibane teenager who ''really'' knows how to play with fire.

"Middle Age Electronics hard at work," Aware smiles, then notices the approach, "Teacher Shoukai," he greets warmly.

"He's ''really'' getting into it," the teacher says, "It seems to me frighteningly tedious to smelt a tiny little bit of broken glass like that for nine hours to make one tiny little electronic switch."

"He showed us the first," Aware says, "It certainly looked like it was born in there."

"That was his eighth, actually," the teacher says, "the first that worked as a diode. He didn't even attach leads to the first four because he was trying to work out the crystal purity. He's recycled the second one into the fourth, fifth, and finally the eighth, the one he showed you."

The Communicator observes the boy with nothing less than fascination as the teacher continues, "He's absolutely convinced that God brought him here to build electronics, but I really struggle with it. His enthusiasm is wasted on something like that in this environment, where we need first, food, and fuel, and paper. There isn't a single person in Glie who can make a good rope for example."

"It doesn't make any sense," Aware says, "We'd be trading ''for'' electronics with those outside, if they didn't get wiped out like we did. They wouldn't have lost their entire technology base unless-"

"No, the light that defends us doesn't go all the way around the world," the Communicator says, "There must be some other reason. Don't fret, brother, even ''I'' have twenty or thirty years left to ponder this one."

The Communicator sleeps in his uniform, having tucked away in an empty supply closet in the North Wing, Aware and he rouse the very earliest, well before first light, and slowly march around the northern edge of the lake.

"It's been about three years since I took this path," the Communicator grumbles, "I'm glad it didn't sink on its own." The Communicator is more sure of his footing than Aware, and so he says, "Come now, it supported a two tonne cart convoy just fine. It can handle a couple of grumbly merchants.

The Market Square seems overrun with weeds, and it is hard to find where the old paving ends and the mud of the flood begins as it descends towards the lake that has buried the ancient city.

A Toga emerges curiously from the gate as it cracks open. He leaps in surprise and starts waving frantically back through the opening. The Communicator is standing only a few metres away. Several Toga emerge from the gate and regard the strangely dressed Glie-jin curiously. They seem most perplexed that his wings aren't real. Aware has held back and is unable to make out any of this, and couldn't understand it even if he did.

The Communicator raises his hands and starts signing in fluent Toganese, "For a moment, I naively thought I could tell what you changed from. Wraith, Brat, Imp, Hellknight. It's swell that I can't."

The first one that came through the gate signs back, "We are just Toga. And as just Toga, we are happy."

"I would pray that the Saviour's blood was not wasted on you if I did not give him my wings," the Communicator signs.

"Then it's true?" the Toga asks with trembling hands, "You became one of us to show his faith and that of..."

The Communicator waits patiently.

"What do you call this place, Communicator?" the Toga signs.

"Glie," the Communicator signs.

"I don't understand," the Toga responds.

The Communicator takes out from under his arm a scroll, which he unrolls and places in the spokesman's hand, then signs, "Sound catalog for forming words that are not in our language."

The Toga beholds a bewildering array of Toganese, hiragana, katakana, and latin characters. He rolls up the scroll and signs, "If our Saviour didn't give it to us, I'm sure it can wait."

"So what brings you here?" the Communicator signs.

"We were hoping to find advanced goods," the Toga signs. He presents a small object, two halves hinged together.

As the Communicator holds it in his hand, he opens it and finds that the lower half is a keypad with sixteen buttons, and the upper half is a display screen with an elaborate glowing pattern, which includes a couple of Latin numeric digits. He presses some of the buttons on the lower half, expecting some response, but gets none. The strange pattern on the screen does not change.

"It doesn't work," the Toga signs, "The devices like that are failing all over the world, and our partners can't make new ones. They haven't been able to for fifteen years. They try very hard. Those outside are being reduced to this."

The Toga presents a small glass tube. He holds it next to the other device.

"The tube has a vacuum pulled inside it. It is very fragile, can't survive being dropped, unlike the folding device," the Toga explains. "It is one digital switch. The pin in the middle of its base controls the flow of electrons between the other two. It can also be used to magnify an electronic wave pattern, but it is the digital switch form that most interests our partners."

The Communicator sees no resemblance between this carefully constructed glass tube and the orcish looking "transistor" offered to him by Fushoku except that each has three wires.

"It is hard to make anything useful and small enough to carry with only a few such tubes," the Toga laments, "The folding device has about twenty billion such switches."

The Communicator slowly lowers his hands, holding the two devices in one.

"The advanced device has a different type of switch. Somehow all of them are etched into a little piece of metal. Windows are also made from this metal's oxide," he explains.

The Communicator sets down the devices, then signs, "Etched, did you say?"

"Yes. That might not be the right word, but it is the one we understand," the Toga signs, "As long as we live, we will come at the same time every Tuesday, as has been our custom since the first Toga. The Saviour tells me that was ninety-five years ago. We don't always have to trade, but will gladly be here every week just to see the fingers of the one who lost his wings to show us the Saviour's love."

"How long have you been Toga?" Communicator asks.

"The longest among us is eight months," the Toga answers, "You know what we were before. It hasn't been long that there has been reason to let us live."

On that sad note, the Toga step back, leaving the two devices with the Communicator, "Pray that we live yet another week, Saviour-spawn and brother." The gate closes.

The Communicator stares at the two devices in his hands.

"How'd it go?" Aware asks as he returns to his side.

"Oops," the Washi breathlessly gasps.

"What do you mean, Master?" Aware asks.

"Fushoku really did have something to offer the Toga."

Next: [[Rise of Glie Chapter 19]]: Return of the Crow

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Rise of Glie Chapter 14

2011-12-03T20:17:19Z

Fhd remix: Assassinated a typo

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Previous: [[Rise of Glie Chapter 13]]: Finished

== FHD Remix: The Rise of Glie ==

Chapter 14: The First Communicator

"Washi," Aware whispers in the garden of the Temple, the trees young and short, plot borders marked by small stones. "Washi," Aware says, "you know this place too well, you can't ''possibly'' have missed me coming in, and you snore like a chainsaw so I know you're not asleep either."

"Who are you calling ''Communicator?''" the old voice of an unseen man growls impatiently, "There is no such thing."

"The East Gate doesn't open on its own, Master Shiden," Aware says, "Your binoculars still work, too," he holds them up, "I know."

"The East Gate?" the growl has turned from angry to suspicious.

"Yes, ''Communicator,''" Aware says, "Men in grey robes who hide their faces, three carts, no animals. Their way to the camp is blocked by the lake. They seemed very disappointed that there was no one to greet them, so they left after waiting five hours. There were at least thirty, but they hide well, so I'm not too sure of my count. I haven't told anyone in the camp."

Shiden makes a sound that triggers a memory in Aware: A steel ship at sea populated by pale-skinned men with a flat deck and blue flying machines that were short, fat, and made an awful buzzing noise. That must be something else. [The abbreviation is used three times in ''Space: Above and Beyond,'' a Fox series that lasted only the 1995-96 season; it features a type of creature with a bit of similarity to haibane, the "InVitro" as well as an episode with a bit more similarity to ''Doom 3,'' #7 ''The Enemy''; finally, Lt. Colonel T. C. McQueen, the squadron commander played by James Morrison, bears some resemblance to a Communicator by being an InVitro who is grounded as a space pilot.]

"What did you call them?" Aware asks.

"The ''Toga,''" Shiden replies after clearing his throat, "Traders with those outside." Aware finally sees him as he mutters, "I finally got this damn thing open. Turns out the latch was fine. I used the breast drill to give it a new handle. God, is it ever boring in here."

"We blow the dam today," Aware says softly, trying to assure the old man with the good news, "You'll be the only haibane from the old city to see it." Aware approaches cautiously, reaching for Shiden's trembling left wing, which is missing several feathers.

"Ah!" Shiden screams as Aware touches him. He spins around and swings the dim halo in his hands like a bladed weapon, causing Aware to jump back. The old man collapses to his knees, dropping the halo. He buries the balls of his hands into his eyes and cries, "I'm not a ''haibane'' anymore, can't you see that?"

"You are still my elder brother," Aware says, "We still have the same dream, and I want to help you."

"Don't leave me," Shiden bawls, staring at his dim halo. He picks it up and gently taps the flat side of it against his head. "Why doesn't it ''glow?'' Aware, why doesn't it glow?"

"You know more about that than I do, Master," Aware says, kneeling in front of him, "and you made me promise never to say anything about it, twice even before you told me the first time."

"It ''hurts,'' elder brother, it ''hurts,'' God ''damn'' it!" he wails, leaning on his friend's shoulders, helpless to do anything about his situation. "Not just the physical pain, but knowing my time as a haibane is up, and the Saviour will not let me ''Fly!!''" The white knuckle grip on Aware's shoulders makes him wince, share in the elder's pain.

"Master ... Shiden ... my brother," Aware sobs, "I don't know how to help you, but I have to get back to the camp."

"Don't ''leave'' me!" he screams desperately, pulling on Aware's shoulders. "It hurts less when you're around. It might be the glow of your halo. I beg you ''please,'' brother, stay with me until-"

"Until?" Aware warmly grasps the elder's arms above the elbow, trying to loosen his grip. "Master Shiden, are you dying?"

"No," he sobs, "I'm losing my wings. They die without the glow of the halo."

"You told me," Aware says.

"Stay with me," Shiden begs, "until they fall off, ''please!''"

"Why won't he let you fly?" Aware whispers. "I want to help, if there's some sin you can tell me about, maybe it's not too late."

"He said ''you'' would tell me," Shiden sobs, "Since the last time you were here, he told me you'd come with the answer. Brother Aware, why won't he let me fly?"

Aware sobs helplessly.

"''Why!?''" Shiden bawls, shaking Aware's shoulders, "He said you'd have the answer ... right ''now!''" Shiden lets go of his friend and picks up his halo, "Why, my friend and brother, won't you tell me why, this thing won't glow, and why I can't get out of this world?"

"I don't know," Aware sobs, "but they ... what did you call them? ... They're back. You can be ''Washi,'' the ''Communicator.'' Those robes are so encompassing, and the mask, I've seen pictures. No one will ever know it's you ... especially the way your voice has changed since you left the camp."

The old man looks Aware in the eye with realization. The same happy glint that came when Shiden first understood a formula or calculation Aware would be discussing with him about the dyke over the last seven years. But, that glint came not with happiness, but with horror, and Shiden turns his face away, then collapses prone in front of Aware, holding his dim halo over his head where it once belonged, bawling desperately, "Uso da ... Uso da ... Uso da" [Japanese, "not true", repeated by Rakka in ''Haibane Renmei'' Episode 13 after she learns why Reki is sin-bound.]

"How long, Master?" Aware whispers.

"It ... shouldn't be more than a couple of days," Shiden sobs.

Aware winces, he was hoping his visit would last no more than an hour, but he daren't utter that in front of the broken man at his knees. If it is to be days, there is no point in going back to explain to a camp that isn't supposed to know Shiden is still in Glie. He takes the elder's left hand from the halo and grips it tightly in his own right hand. "Master Shiden," he whispers, "I'll stay. The dam can wait a couple of days."

"Oh," his voice wells from a pit of desperate gratitude, "Thank you, brother. Thank you."

Next: [[Rise of Glie Chapter 15]]: Gone Forever

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