i was a little busy, so you get an extra long chapter for being patient
anyway!! emetophobia warning for the second to last segment
(it's very brief and described sparingly) thank you for reading!!
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"What the hell, Renee?" you said, having no choice but to let her swipe Momo's reins from your hand.
Momo chittered nervously as she guided him over to her side, his talons stumbling over themselves whenever he'd look back over to you. He had never looked so scared.
"I wanted to surprise you with my portion of the reward," she said, pityingly. "But, you decided to make things complicated. Sorry. It's nothing personal."
Your mouth opened and closed uselessly, and ultimately, you slammed your face shut. If you switched sides now, your plan would be ruined. If you wanted to catch Vash in his lie, you had to play your cards right. There were more pressing things to worry about, anyhow.
It was when they lined you up outside the gates in a neat little row that you realized with insurmountable frustration: you had left your crossbow at home. Even then, you doubted there was much you could do at this rate. If you fought back, you'd be shot - if you ran, you'd be shot - and if you played sides, you'd risk losing what little of Vash's trust you had. If you let things play out, maybe you could even get Vash's true self to show. So you let them guide you out of town, hands behind your heads and fat beads of sweat rolling down your neck in streams. Your shoulders ached, but your knees - sand chafing away at your pants - hurt even worse.
Renee, of all people, stood right in front of you, gun aimed squarely at your face. You couldn't look at her.
"How can you be so heartless?" Meryl said thickly.
Rosa scowled. "With the Plant in this state, all we have to rely on is money."
"He saved your town twice."
"I know that." Rosa said, growing impassioned. "I wouldn't dare if there were just adults here. But we're mothers, sisters..I won't stand by while our families get sick and starve."
Stepping forward, she raised the gun, her finger moving over the trigger. "Sorry, Vash. If you need to lay the blame somewhere, call it bad luck."
Vash's shoulders sagged, and he chuckled. His face was doing that thing again – an expression of melancholy, or resignation, but mostly of understanding. This made Rosa pause, finger flexing against the trigger. There was something so old about his look, that suddenly Vash was difficult to timestamp.
With that face, he could've been nineteen or twenty-seven. How long ago was Knight's Fist again? Perhaps you were remembering it wrong, you had been in your teens after all. There's no way this man had stayed so youthful after an entire decade. But you couldn't think about that now. If you wanted to question him yourself, you'd have to make sure he lived to admit all his crimes. That is, of course, if they were even his crimes to begin with.
