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Chapter 8: Yaiba's Perfect Day

Perfect Day (c) 2008 Zooland Music

[Perfect Day, title and Track 5 of the 2008 Cascada Album published by Zooland. Set in late 2152; It is ironic (and entirely coincidental) that Natalie Horler looks like Tatakai, rather than Yaiba, and the lady in BT's Antikythera Mechanism looks like Yaiba (spoiler warning: the Antikythera Mechanism official video gives away something very important; that too, is coincidental.)]

I know what it takes
I won't hesitate
Thought I told you not to call
'cus I don't care at all

Guards come to take the young brunette from her cell. She wears a brilliant orange prison jumpsuit. They lead her in irons down a corridor. Fellow inmates are rather quiet. She, however, quietly smiles. The Cascada song playing softly in her head was written for days like these.

Here's my point of view:
I'm all through with you
Guess there's nothing left to say
And I'm not gonna wait

"A last look at your sacred text, sweetie?" one of the guards asks her derisively, "Seek your beloved Saviour for some last minute advice? You will die just as easily as he did."

The girl looks up at him and says, "And I will come back ... just like he did."

The guard gives her a smart swat. Her hair blows about as she recoils from the swing. As she offers her other cheek, the other guard grabs his hand and says, "Boss wants her pretty for her execution."

Cus I'm all right
Yeah yeah
And I don't mind
Yeah yeah
Baby you're no longer
creeping in my head

The girl strides so proudly into the square that the guards can hardly keep up. Once in the middle, she just stands there.

Say I'm okay
Yeah yeah
I'm on my way
Yeah yeah
And it's time for me to face that
Perfect Day

The executioner stands there, annoyed at her impudence. "Are you in a hurry to die, little girl?" he growls.

"Why shouldn't I be? Every drop of blood spilt from the veins of his followers hastens the return of the Saviour," she nods over to a caged creature brought along to watch the proceedings, an imp brought from the red planet. "And, do you really think she gives any more of a crap about you than I do?"

The creature screams and bangs loudly against his bars, briefly startling the girl. The cage is open at the back, intended to protect the hellspawn from her, not the other way around.

Yeah yeah
Yeah yeah

"Soon it will be war," she explains, "and you will be on the wrong side, or worse: We will be divided against our common foe. My side with the light of the Saviour, yours," she shrugs playfully, "with no hope at all."

Then she sings from one of her favorite songs:

"Boy you've gone too far
This is who you are
Now your back's against the wall
But I don't care at all"

She continues to sing as the executioner grabs her shoulders angrily.

"Made me spin around
Now I'm touching ground"

She indicates the executioner's sword lying in its cradle beside the pillory that will hold her for her final breath.

"Here's the price you have to pay
And I can't hardly wait"

She keeps singing as the guards force her into the pillory and clap it shut around her neck. Over the course of the chorus, the executioner picks up his weapon and brandishes it for her, the camera, and the few spectators.

"'Cus I'm all right
Yeah yeah
And I don't mind
Yeah yeah
Baby you're no longer
creeping in my head

"Say I'm okay
Yeah yeah
I'm on my way
Yeah yeah
It's time for me to face that
Perfect
The Perfect
Perf-"

The head of the Saviour-spawn is severed from her body by a single swing from the anodized black sword held by the executioner, momentarily ending her defiant singing. Her twitching body also falls free from the bloodied restraint that held her. The executioner begins, "In the name of peace, so ends the pitiful life of another-"

"Tired of having you around
I don't need you
I won't let you bring me down"

The words of her song continue as though her disembodied voice echoes off the walls, unnerving everyone in attendance, especially the creatures and the executioner himself.

<Okay, this is different,> she thinks as she comes awake floating in her cocoon. She looks down at her body, seeing the white robe she expected. She reaches for the wall of the cocoon, feeling its soft inner lining.

"Hello," says Tatakai in her chair just outside the cocoon. "Take your time coming out. You'll probably be disappointed to know that it is Saturday in the dead of winter. I arrived on a Saturday last winter, the first Haibane to arrive in the winter in 62 years."

<There's something wrong about that.> She had tried to speak, but no sound emerged. < I'm breathing the fluid,> she realizes. She sits down in the bottom of the cocoon and closes her eyes. Her body refuses to go back to sleep, and a part of her mind insists that she break out of the cocoon. She tears through the lining, then gives the shell a good punch. No damage. Another. The shell spiderwebs like tempered glass. <Oh dear,> she thinks.

Suddenly the shell in front of her gives out. She'd scream if she could make a sound at all. The outrush carries her into the room. Before she has come to a stop, arms are wrapped around her wet body and a pair of breasts like her own assure her that she's not alone. In wrapping her arms around her host she feels feathers.

"I've got you," the host says, wiping the cocoon's milk from her eyes. The brown haired lady opens her eyes to see a confident pair of green eyes, framed by a nurturing smile and wet blonde hair. She tries to thank her, but her throat feels very uncomfortable. "Exhale first," her host instructs, positioning so that the cocoon milk in her lungs comes up easily onto the floor.

Tatakai lets the newborn cough, standing by to lend a hand. She's breathing normally within a couple of minutes and looks up at her. The new lady's brown eyes are glazing over. Tatakai is reminded of how she felt first emerging. "So tired," she says, "Where's the Saviour?"

Tatakai shakes her head, "He's not back yet."

"Where am I?" is her next question.

"Under the altar, I think," answers Tatakai, "The town is called Glie, we are the special creatures in it called Haibane, Ashfeathers."

"F-," she nearly remembers the name of the old angel-like creatures hunted as fiercely by the new regime as the Saviour-spawn. Featherwing, Haoto she remembers the creature, but not the name. "The wings," she gasps, "six metre span ... flyers ... shared by love?"

"No," Tatakai says, "they are extinct today."

The new girl shakes, "Then what are?" she indicates Tatakai's wings.

Tatakai responds, "Something different ... I was a flyer before ... a warrior in the last battle ... my final memory was being blown out of the sky."

The girl says, "I was executed by the new regime as a follower of the Saviour ... they had the demons from the portals developed on the red planet ... they are the ones who are really in charge."

"No, sister," Tatakai says, "The Saviour is in charge ... always has been."

The new girl smiles from under her soaked grey-brunette hair. Her contented eyes slowly close. Tatakai gathers her legs up under her left arm and stands.

"Let's get you to the guest room, the next twenty four hours are going to be quite a challenge for you." The brunette is already asleep in Tatakai's arms.

After some time passes, the new girl rouses in the guestroom bed. She feels the soft sheets around her and smiles. She knows her host is in the room and sighs, "The first morning after my execution feels so much better than the last night before."

At breakfast, the brunette, apparently sixteen years old, shares her unsettling dream with the other haibane. The others have introduced themselves and their dreams.

Tatakai says, "It feels like I'm supposed to know you, like if I could remember my first life, it'd be like, Hey! I know who that is."

Shimoni says, "Now for a name, how about ナイフ, Naifu?"

Menmo giggles, "Too English, might as well just call her Blade" [Author's note: there is a fictional vampire killer by that name, the title character of two movies who's played by Wesley Snipes.]

"刃, [ヤイバ], Yaiba," the girl suggests, "blade."

Menmo says, "That actually sounds kinda cute!"

"Yeah," Tatakai says, "unlike my name, it won't sound like you're ticked off all the time."

"But you are ticked off all the time, Tatakai," Kurai blurts.

"Only at the end of the month," Tatakai retorts.

"And the rest of us," says Shimoni, "Yaiba, we all get it at the same time, I'm not sure why."

"Get what?" Yaiba asks.

Kurai giggles, it's obvious hers is mildest.

"PMS," Tatakai explains.

Next: FHD Remix Chapter 9: Your Name Is Battle

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