TriMax 10 Chapter 6

[tiggymalvern]

Chapter Six - 'Kikan' ('The Return')

Sumire's translation here. No changes this chapter either.

Wolfwood continues his assault on Livio, hitting him repeatedly in a sort of monotonous rhythm. Livio is thinking now that he really is going to die - his body is being damaged faster than the healing can keep up. Vash is still watching from a short distance away, looking more and more unhappy as this goes on, Wolfwood puching Livio over and over until Vash finally starts crying, having seen more than enough from psychotic!Wolfwood. Livio by this point is reduced to thinking nothing more than, 'Master! Help me, Master!' (Sumire's p109)


Wolfwood suddenly stops and throws up blood. He reaches in his pocket for more of the Magic Juice, but he drops it and it rolls away, and Wolfwood just kind of sags on the spot. Livio continues to regenerate and sees his chance coming.
The two minions from earlier start moving again - they've got Magic Juice auto-injectors built in underneath those funny humps at the back of their armour. Vash may have agreed to stay out of the Wolfwood and Livio fight, but he's still allowed to take down minions, and he leaps over Wolfwood and kicks them flat.


Vash has the auto out now as well as the pistol, and sticks a gun in each minion. "Stay... out of it!!" he says, back to the pissed off, hot Vash. The minions grab his arms. (Sumire's p116)


Livio's quite happy for the minions just to keep Vash out of the way for a minute or two. He's regenerating fast now - hey, he has a nose again already *g*. He sits up and tells Wolfwood that this is the end; he's going to rip out his heart.


Livio draws back his left hand Seishirou-style, Vash screams "Wolfwood!", and Livio strikes - but he misses Wolfwood as he stabs his own arm with the ragged bones of the hand that Wolfwood shot off.


And we finally catch a glimpse of that other eye behind all the hair as Livio says, "....Wh...at...? ...You..." Wolfwood looks completely shell-shocked - how wide can his eye get? *g* (Sumire's p120)


Wolfwood pulls himself together enough to take his chance and smacks Livio flat on his back again. And then suddenly he gets a set of very familiar spikes straight through his shoulder. Gratuitous much, Nightow? XD


There were obviously a lot of things Chapel didn't tell Livio. While he's not like Livio (that process looked painful and nasty), he obviously didn't plan on dying too easily either. He's still a long way from mobile, but he's managed to fire off the end of that gun like a spear. (Out of ammo, Chapel?)


Livio screams "Masteeer!" But he doesn't seem as happy at Chapel's miraculous recovery as he might be. He sits up and stares at Chapel. "Why did you...." His eye goes wide and he starts crying. "You tried to... to kill me too!" He drags himself to his feet, grabs his Punisher and sprays Chapel into itsy little pieces with concentrated gunfire. I figure he probably really is dead this time!


Livio goes utterly berserk and continues firing as he swings the gun around, peppering the whole orphange with bullets. He screams, "You die too!" and aims back towards Wolfwood, who's managed to pull the spikes out of his shoulder at least *g* (Sumire's p129)


But Livio stops firing again and starts having a conversation with himself, alternately calling himself Livio and Lazlo, with Livio saying to stop and Lazlo telling him to STFU. (Sumire's p132)


Vash stares in astonishment as the 'arguing' goes on, and Wolfwood just sits and clutches his shoulder for a while. Eventually the non-psycho side of Livio wins out, the one that doesn't kill puppies and doesn't remember why he likes killing puppies. Or, as Wolfwood puts it, "So Cry-baby Livio's back..."


I have some speculation on Livio - as usual Nightow's pretty damn sparing with the facts! But the convenience of the timing of his nice personality resurfacing after we'd seen nothing but the psycho for so long seems a bit too pat at first glance, so I got thinking. When Livio was a kid, the nasty episodes were more of an aberration, infrequent and triggered by specific events. With all the freaky medical stuff that we know the Eye of Michael were into, it wouldn't be surprising if they'd done something (drugs? brain surgery?) to Livio to keep the psychotic side on the surface. That would fit with Livio's accusation that Chapel 'tried to kill me too' - suppress that personality. So when Livio's badly injured and his body's regenerating fast, that could either use up the drugs in his system, or the healing of damaged parts of his brain could cause them to regenerate how they were naturally if he'd been physically altered. Either way, I figure he had to almost die before the 'Livio' personality could properly resurface. [/random musing]

Comments

[andmydog.livejournal.com]

Just kickin' back while Livio has a MPS episode... and where, exactly, did that cigarette come from?


Damn.

[jaina.livejournal.com]

Wolfwood keeps his cigarettes in the same place the sailor senshi keep their transformation sticks.

[tiggymalvern.livejournal.com]

He definitely has magic pockets. His sunglasses lasted through all the 'orribleness until he actually made the mistake of putting them on. And the smokes survive too, every time!

[tiggymalvern.livejournal.com]

and where, exactly, did that cigarette come from?

Hey, at least he's obviously had a few moments to light this one while Livio babbled. It's the previous one that was the real mystery! XD

[tiggymalvern.livejournal.com]

That was just like - Nightow, why did you wake Chapel up just to kill him again about 3 pages later??!! Was it purely so you could torture Wolfwood some more? Okay, I'll admit it gave us some info on split personality Livio too, but honestly! XD

[mistressrenet.livejournal.com]

Agreed, on both counts.