Every Light Casts a Shadow Chapter 2

[bissek]

Disclaimer: In the name of God, impure souls who attempt to claim the property of Kohta Hirano and Naoko Takuechi shall be banished to eternal damnation. Amen.
Every Light Casts a Shadow
Chapter 2
Yumiko and Heinkel took an international flight from Rome to Tokyo. During the long flight, they went through the limited amount of information that was known about the witches they had been sent to destroy. After arriving at the hotel they would be staying at while working this assignment, Yumiko ceded control to Yumie and she discussed their initial findings with Heinkel. What Yumiko and Yumie had gathered from the data available was:
The first witch to appear was the one known as V or Venus. She had begun her operations in England, and Vatican investigators had tried without success to find a connection between this witch and the Hellsing organization. Hopefully that was because there was none; the young and inexperienced head of Hellsing was dangerous enough with her absolute control of the supermidian Alucard. If Hellsing also acquired a cadre of mages to back them up, all plans to reestablish Catholic influence in Britain at this time could be ruined.
The other four appeared in Juuban, while the first was still working in England. Then the first shifted bases of operation to link up with the others. This was worrying. If the later witches had been recruited by the earlier witches, then they would all have turned up in England. As it was, it implied that a third party was selecting and training the witches, rather than the witches simply seeking out other members for their coven. Had this mystery controller moved from England to Japan to recruit new members? Or were there multiple cells spread around the world, each seeking out recruits. In the first case, this controller may very well be trying to find a Sailor Saturn somewhere in Peru, then go on to pick up a Uranus in Germany, a Neptune in Egypt and a Pluto in Australia. In the second case, it was possible that groups of additional Senshi would form up in various corners of the world, rather than individuals. Was this ‘Kamen’ person their controller, a male member of the coven, or a member of an allied group? In all possible answers to these questions, any effort to wipe out these witches would by necessity involve identifying this command and control structure that recruited them, or else these unknown leaders would just create another group elsewhere.
Each of the witches apparently specialized in a different kind of elemental magic. That meant that they would have gaps in their offensive and defensive capabilities based on their respective elements. These could be compensated for when they worked in a group, but they would be vulnerable to attacks tailored to those gaps when alone. There was only one magical ability they seemed to have in common – now matter how high quality a photograph was taken of the witches, not one of them had a clear shot of their faces. In every shot, their faces would be blurred, even though every other detail about the picture was perfectly clear. The one thing Yumiko could tell from the photos about the witches was that by their height and builds they had to be young – probably too young to be in high school yet.
Yumiko found this last bit disturbing. She didn’t like the fact that Yumie killed adults, but they had all sinned knowingly and of their own free will. Children who fall into sin are often just misguided, and it was the duty of a daughter of the church to guide them back to the proper path, not kill them. Surely Maxwell wanted to kill their controllers and save the children who had been led astray, not slaughter all of them. But Bishop Maxwell had explicitly decreed that the Senshi must die, and a leader of the church would never misuse his powers by ordering the death of innocents. Her belief that children should be protected and guided along the path of righteousness and her belief that the church was the ultimate symbol of good in the world, that could do no wrong, and by extension meant that Maxwell, as an agent of the church, would never give an order without the best of intentions in mind collided, trapping Yumiko in a situation with no right answer for several hours of the flight.
Yumie eventually ended the silent debate with one statement: Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live.
Yumiko mentally sighed. Whenever she seemed stuck in a scenario where no path appeared to be the right way, Yumie would step in and make the decision for her. This decision usually involved the application of violence to one of the parties responsible for creating the scenario in the first place. Misguided children or not, by becoming witches, they were now beyond redemption, and must be destroyed. Her doubts remained, but they were quashed beneath duty to her superior and her duty to God. Hopefully she’d feel better about this after it was all over.
Eventually it was decided – in order to destroy the witches, more information would be needed. Any attempt to isolate and kill them one by one would require knowing who they really were, and the best way to identify their controllers would be to track one or more of the witches and see who they get in touch with.
A week passed.
Yumiko and Heinkel would wander throughout Juuban, trying to discretely gather information about their targets. Then Yumie and Heinkel would discuss what they had learned that evening. Despite their best efforts, they had yet to encounter any of the Senshi, or any of the monsters that Maxwell had stated that they were creating. There was only one thing of consequence that they did learn.
“If these witches are trying to gain the support of the local population before making their move, they’re succeeding admirably. I can’t believe how popular these witches are.” Yumie grumbled.
“Da. Senshi posters, Senshi fanclubs, I heard some company is thinking of making Senshi action figures. Father Anderson’s been in the monster hunting business longer that any of these witches have been alive, and HE doesn’t have his own video game. If these witches are getting any kind of royalties from all this merchandise, then they’re building up quite a war chest they could use to fund their next move, whatever that is. We need to get some solid information on these people so we can act, and soon.” Heinkel agreed.
The next day, a change happened to their routine, which was totally unexpected by all three of them.
Yumiko was walking through the town’s commercial district, when she heard a voice call out “…And in the name of the Moon, I shall punish you!”
The witches had made an appearance at last. Yumiko made a quick call to Heinkel so she would know where this was happening and then ran towards the fight. Now she would have a chance to get information about the targets, so that Yumie could finish this job and go home. And maybe, if she saw these witches in the practice of their wicked arts, the doubts that Yumie had to keep quashing would go away for good.
All five of the witches were battling a group of strange, semi-feminine creatures. The sheer ferocity with which the creatures attacked the witches showed that unless the witches had great choreographers, this was NOT some staged show to gather funds and public support. This was further supported when a stumble from the witch in the blue skirt caused her to only get minor scratches from a blow that could very well have taken her head off if she hadn’t moved. Additional reinforcement of this notion came from the way that the one with the light blue skirt conjured up a fog bank so that the witches could get civilians caught in the crossfire out of harm’s way.
A sharp retort from Yumie caused her to stop woolgathering and pay closer attention to the fight. Light blue skirt: Mercury. Element: Water. Seemed to not engage the enemy directly, might be primarily support rather than a fighter. Orange skirt: Venus. Element: Metal. The most experienced in actual combat, and it showed. Red skirt: Mars. Element: Fire. After watching the witch pull out a spirit ward and use it to immobilize one of the monsters, Yumiko realized that this one must have had training in Shinto rituals. This could be a lead to figuring out who she was. Green skirt: Jupiter. Element: Lightning. Apparently had training in hand-to-hand combat. Blue skirt: Moon. Element…
“Look out!” An unfamiliar voice called.
Suddenly, a blow knocked Yumiko to the ground, sending her glasses flying. The last of the monsters had decided to attack her, apparently wanting to kill somebody before dying it/herself and choosing somebody who wasn’t shooting back. As the witches finished off the monster, Yumie started to surge to the front of Yumiko’s mind.
The witches! They’re here! KILL THEM! Yumie demanded.
No! They’re not trying to hurt anybody! They’re just misguided! I’m sure if we explain the error of their ways to them we can save them and take them into the service of the Lord and … Yumiko pleaded.
SHUT UP, YUMIKO! THOU SHALT NOT SUFFER A WITCH TO LIVE!!! With that, Yumie took control and charged for the weakest of the witches. Having left her sword at the hotel to avoid awkwardness with the authorities before she could complete her mission, she grabbed Mercury by the throat and was about to throw a punch that would splinter ribs in a way that ruin internal organs when a blow from behind knocked her unconscious.
“Thanks, Jupiter” Gasped Mercury. “What caused that woman to go crazy like that?”
“I don’t know, Mercury.” Replied Jupiter “She wasn’t hostile before the youma hit her, maybe it had some ability to corrupt people it attacked? Some of them have been possessing people lately.”
“Hmm… there is some strange kind of darkness in her.” Mentioned Mars “I wasn’t paying much attention, but I don’t think it was there before she was hit. We’d better purify her to purge the Dark Kingdom influence.”
With that, Sailor Moon went up to the unconscious woman and cast a Moon Healing Escalation. After that, she found the woman’s glasses and put them back on the woman’s head. Shortly after that, a second woman ran up to them.
“There you are Yumiko… is she alright?” Heinkel asked.
“She was hurt by one of the youma, but she should be fine.” Replied Moon.
“Thank you.” With that, Heinkel picked up Yumiko and started carrying her back to the hotel.
Yumiko woke from a strange dream. She dreamt of a voice calling “Moon Healing Escalation!” and then a wash of power flowed over her. It felt like sinking into a hot bath, warm and comforting. But at the same time, Yumie acted like she had been forced into a tub full of acid, screaming in agony as she suddenly melted away. That strange mixture of peace and torment puzzled her. As she got to her feet, she noticed something even stranger than the dream.
Even when Yumie was sleeping, Yumiko could always sense her in the back of her mind. Right now, she couldn’t sense Yumie at all, as if she wasn’t sleeping or awake, merely gone. The truth of what that dream meant abruptly came to her.
It wasn’t a dream. One of the witches had cast a healing spell on her, and it cured her of Yumie. For the first time in twenty years, Yumiko was alone in her own head.
Yumiko was thrilled. No more missions. No more being forced to watch Yumie hack her way through masses of bodies, only to recede and leave Yumiko covered in blood. She could go back to the orphanage, and spend the rest of her days teaching the children, never having to worry about the scary and often painful world outside of a cloistered life ever again.
But then, she realized that the blessing granted to her by these witches represented a contradiction in what she had believed about them.
What does this mean? Yumie was a bad person – she liked to hurt people - the only reason that Maxwell kept her around is that he could get her to only hurt other bad people. If the Senshi got rid of a bad person, does that mean that they’re good? Bishop Maxwell would never do anything bad on purpose, but he could do what he thinks is the right thing while being mistaken. But the Bible says that all witches are bad, and must be killed, and the Bible can’t be wrong. Yumie is bad – she killed Daddy. The Senshi killed Yumie, so they must be good. But the Senshi are witches, so they must be bad. But bad people don’t hurt bad people, so does this make Yumie good? But she killed Daddy, and a good person wouldn’t kill her own father, so she must be bad…

Yumiko was stuck in a recursive loop of ingrained precepts that contradicted each other when combined with observed facts. Always before, Yumie would arbitrate these problems, but Yumie wasn’t around to do that anymore. Fortunately, Heinkel showed up before Yumiko’s logical snarl could do more than give her a headache.
Meanwhile, outside the apartment, a group of survivors from The One Messiah Path of Truth Church gathered in the hallway. The One Messiah Path of Truth Church was a cult that had formed in Wales. Their Founder, Supreme Spiritual Leader Abraham van Rogh, had launched a poison gas attack on the Vatican. In retaliation, CrossFire had been dispatched to administer punishment. In the middle of a High Mass, the two nuns had stormed into the church, slaughtered their way down the main aisle of the chapel, and then the psychotic dark-haired swordswoman had decapitated their Messiah in front of hundreds of members of the congregation. With the death of their founder, the cult, ten thousand strong, had dissolved virtually overnight. But atypically for a CrossFire mission, they had left survivors, and some of them had sworn vengeance. Now having tracked down their enemies, that vengeance was at hand. The leader of the group stood in front of the door, and then kicked it open while calling out the motto of their church.
“GOD’S TRUTH IS AMONG US!”
Yumiko had been describing to Heinkel exactly what had happened in the fight. She was just about to mention Yumie’s apparent death when the attack began. Heinkel grabbed her gun and began firing. Yumiko took off her glasses, and was reaching for the sword in her bag, when she froze. Yumie was the fighter, not her. The Bible forbade killing. Proper Japanese girls weren’t supposed to hurt people. She could barely bring herself to touch the sword, let alone draw it. She couldn’t fight, and she didn’t want to die. She wasn’t able to figure out what to do.
“YUMIEEE! WAKE UP!” cried Heinkel, after getting wounded.
The cry snapped Yumiko out of her indecision. She replaced her glasses, grabbed the entire bag, and fled for her life down the fire escape. She ran until she made it to a nearby church, where she showed the priest in charge identification proving her to be an agent of the Vatican, and then collapsed, shaking in fear.
Heinkel was dead.
She had taken every one of the cultists with her, but Heinkel was dead, and it was her fault. Yumiko knew it. If she had stayed to help, somehow, Heinkel would still be alive.
Perhaps this was somehow the witches’ doing. They had granted her deepest, most secret desire, and then less than an hour later, her partner had died as a direct result of that. Perhaps they really were evil after all.

But Yumie and Heinkel had killed dozens of people in that cult that day over a year ago. They didn’t stop to check to see if the people they killed had been involved with the gas attack, they just killed anyone between them and van Rogh. They might have killed some innocents in the process, and then the cultists would have been justified in seeking to punish us. Her conscience whispered.
That was another part of the problem with losing Yumie. Yumie always had an answer to these moral quandaries. Yumiko didn’t always like the answers Yumie gave, but at least they were answers. Now she had to wrestle with her conscience alone, something that she hadn’t had to do since she was six.
Bishop Maxwell was not pleased.
“You get your ability to fight stripped from you by those witches, and manage to get your partner killed, and you still haven’t come close to completing your mission, or getting enough information to allow somebody else to complete it! You wouldn’t believe how much effort it’s taking me to cover up this mess with the cult! You are the most useless excuse for an Iscariot I’ve ever seen, Yumiko!” He bellowed over the phone line.
“But, Bishop Maxwell..” Yumiko began.
“Enough! Without Yumie, you are totally useless to me. There’s a private catholic academy near your location. I’ve arranged for you to join the faculty there. That is your assignment until further notice.” With that, Maxwell hung up.
Yumiko was shocked. Bishop Maxwell had just flat-out stated that the only use he had for her was that she had carried a monster inside her. The very concept of that shook the foundations of what she believed the Church to stand for. She went to the quarters that had been given to her by the local church, and for the first time in twenty years, cried herself to sleep.
Two days later…
Rei Hino sat in her classroom at T*A Private Girls Academy as the new math teacher walked in. Wait a minute… wasn’t she the one who got possessed by that youma and tried to kill Ami a few days ago?
“Good morning class. My name is Sister Yumiko Takagi.”
A/N ‘Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live’ is actual scripture – Exodus 22:18. The problem with interpreting it stems from the fact that in the two thousand some odd hundred years between when it was written and the start of the witchcraft craze of the middle ages, the definition of the word ‘witch’ expanded considerably, and people took it to mean various synonyms of one definition rather than the one that was intended. According to http://www.religioustolerance.org, there are 19 different definitions of the word ‘witch’. Two pairs of those definitions are mutually exclusive. A more accurate translation of that biblical passage, using a less ambiguous word equivalent to the definition that was actually meant, would be ‘Thou shalt not suffer a poisoner to live’.
The One Messiah Path of Truth Church, what it did, and what happened to it as a result is described in CrossFire 3, which can be found in Hellsing manga volume 3.
Why did Heinkel have to die? Because without Yumie, Yumiko was without an arbiter in her internal debates. If Heinkel had lived, she could have taken that role. By removing her from the story, Yumiko is forced to find her own answers.
Why did I make Yumiko a math teacher? Math is non-controversial. When Yumiko split her personality, she made her core personality have issues dealing with anything that doesn’t easily fit into neat categories of right and wrong. These categories are defined from the perspective she had as a traumatized seven year old. Given that the Catholic Church finds some branches of science controversial and that it’s easy to have controversial debates in history, especially over various Popes and the way they dabbled in politics during the middle ages, she couldn’t really function well in those classes.
My thanks to Quontir on the fukufics.com C&C board for the idea of the recursive logic scene in Yumiko’s hotel room after Yumie’s death.

[Fafhrd]

This is well written, there was nothing that stood out to me as an error. I like the way you have handled the combination of the personalities, particularly how she now seems to know everything, though she is still shying away from the rougher memories to an extent.
Looking forward to more.

[Sunshine Temple]

A large nitpick about the "non conterversal" reason for picking math.
The 2nd largerst order in the Catholic Church are the Jesuits and their current role is educational and intelectual.
And if you're nixing history given what some popes in the past have done you might as well nix math too. The church did surpress mathmeticiens too.
For non-contreversal math essentially is at that level, so that works.
Don't like how you killed of Heinkel like that. Not that she had to die, I suppose the reasons are good, but with how poorly it was setup, it was very rushed and meh in execution.