Someone else

1

He continued to walk. Where? God knows, he had no destination anymore. It had ended. He had failed. Rem had asked one thing from him and he couldn't even do that. He was supposed to protect Knives. Rem hadn't told from what or who, specifically but Vash believed that he had it figured out. Knives didn't need protection against anyone other than himself. The most dangerous thing to his brother, was his own existence.

Vash felt incompetence. He should have seen it. How Knives acted after seeing Tesla, had not been normal. There was no way he was okay. Yet he acted like he was. Rem had died as a result of them not seeing it.

Vash didn't want to repeat the same mistake again. He didn't want to lose someone dear to him even though that someone had done something so unforgivable. For a long time, everything had been fine. For eighty years they were stuck together. He didn't take his eyes of from Knives even for a second. But then he got into middle of desperate people.

They were the type of desperate people who don't know how to do anything else than bad, because in their head they feel like it's too late to turn back and start again. Being bad helped them achieve their goals fast. They cornered him and took away his ability to move. He didn't hold a grudge against them. He wasn't even mad at them. Of course not all people were nice and good, definitely not. But he was ready to believe that the humanity as one is better than these inviduals he had just encountered. But unlike Vash, Knives didn't believe in it.

He didn't believe that humans can be good. To him, people were insects that made the world rot and used Plants to help themselves while doing it.

No one was left alive when he saved Vash. Even women and children had to die by his hand. The worst at the moment wasn't even the fact that it all happened without Vash being able to do anything. No, it was the fact that in the end it was all meaningless because Knives abandoned him. He didn't help Vash out. Though he used it as an excuse to justify his actions.

Vash couldn't tolerate it. It was thoughtless act, but he shot. Missed. On purpose of course but Knives didn't think so. All that Vash had wanted was for his brother to stop. It was against all that Knives wanted and just his own obsession and desperation. It was a mistake not to hit. When he had that chance, he should have used it. Because Knives was angry now.

"You know, you have to learn how to aim better!" he shouted like he wasn't angered by the fact that his own brother had shot him but that he had missed.

One second and then, pain was all Vash knew. His left arm wasn't in it's place anymore, laying in the dirt next to him until Knives picked it up. After that he had left leaving Vash behind.

Vash had stayed alive. Of course, he was more than those weak humans who surrounded him. That scar, that missing limb didn't let him forget this. In his place, they would have died.

He only waited and lived and got used to what surrounded him. And even though it didn't drastically change anything, there was now a wall in his head. A wall against what he threw himself every time he felt bad, sad or disappointed. In his head that wall was the reason why he couldn't be happy. In reality, that wall contained only one thought.

I'm not a human.

He himself was the one who couldn't let him forget that, accused him of being different but still, it showed.

No matter where he went everyone knew his face after a while. No matter where he went everyone knew his face after a while. Soon everyone wished for his death and that he would disappear. They called him a monster. In some way, they were right. He was a monster but he was a monster they themselves had accidentally created. If they hadn't created Plants, he wouldn't have been born.

After observing humans for a long time, Vash reached a conclusion that they tended to live in the today. In the present. They didn't seem to think even for a second that something more terrible may come. Something more horrible than him what doesn't have any mercy.

Right now, warning them about it would have been useless. At the best, he would have been laughed at by the whole town.

So he gave his best and tried to follow Knives even if everything once already blew against the sky despite his tries. As long as Knives was alive he could just try again and didn't fall into the despair. Success was still possible.

Still, even though he wasn't human and held out where others perished, he was not eternal or invincible. On this seemingly never-ending road, there was no one with him to poke him so he would move and through that live. There was only himself but he knew that he can't.

Then he fell and didn't rise up to his feet anymore. Why move when there is nothing waiting for him ahead? Although, if he dies, what will become of the humanity? Who will protect them in the memory of Rem, against Knives?

No he couldn't die yet.

AN: I just wanted to write something what I would like. That by no means, means that everybody has to like the story or whatever I'm trying to do here.

 Lately, I haven't been too confident in my writing abilities so I'm struggling a bit. Updating may not be regular even though I have actually finished the story. It's just that the translation takes a lot of time and motivation and I rarely have both of them at the same time. Still I hope whoever bothers to read this thing, likes it. I spent so many hours on reading the manga and watching all the episodes available for both Trigun series.