Chapter Two: The Complete Breakdown of the Cardinal Sforza
Disclaimer: This is a fan fiction leaching off of the Trinity Blood Novel Volume Series… I do not own the series. They belong to their REAL creators. That much I know.
Warning: I think I went insane in torturing poor Caterina in this chapter.
Father Tres Iqus mulled the facts over and over his head. He is a cyborg. He’s not suppose to ‘sense’ information and a back-up of the reminder he made a week ago just pops up out of the circumstance. He was supposed to have a rigged system—flawless and self-sustaining without the need to double check on ‘feeling the circumstance’. That’s what normal Terran men do. “I am a machine.” Tres assured himself, not quite certain why he needed to do that.
Needed?
Another odd conundrum. Tres had been watchful of himself since the ‘encounter’ with the Cardinal a week before. He’s programmed not to eavesdrop on the Cardinal, ever. He just disobeyed what was hot-wired into his systems. He was not supposed to throw around the Jericho’s in the Palazzio Spada because it would not bode well for the Eminence’s esteem on him. And the Cardinal wasn’t really threatened. Nor in the brink of death. Why had he acted out of pure ‘impulse’?
Impulse. He didn’t have ‘impulses’.
He’s a killing machine—he was not supposed to make mistakes. The other week had been racked by unsurpassable mistakes that had the cyborg intrigued but not to just keep a blind eye to his systems’ ‘malfunctions’. He planned to observe for the whole week for any other mal in his routine and maintenance. Then, would he tell the Professor.
Perfect. He just had a ‘malfunction’. Two for one—forgetting the Cardinal and feeling for the event in internal drives for a note dated a week ago.
Enlisting several systems malfunctions in protocol:
-Cardinal Caterina Sforza is not deemed full-priority in an event.
-World’s largest handguns have been engaged in non-regulatory events for simulating combat mode.
-Eavesdropping on Cardinal Caterina Sforza
Sidelining as effects of a theorized defect in systems unit function.
The Professor will have a most satiable challenge ahead, as Tres listed the obtained data concerning his ‘malfunction’. But, for now, he must see the Cardinal sound.
If anything, the Cardinal wasn’t sound at all. In minutes, she was to assign Abel a mission, but that wasn’t the thing that was unsettling her. She was to get the real facts on the rumored night from the horse’s mouth himself. She’s going to be sick. She was going to pry information from Abel. She had dreams for the last week of Abel being a white obedient horse that would tell her anything without regret just as long she had hay—she heard it from the horse’s mouth several times that week, “I did do it, but it was an accident!” Then, she’ll just wake up in the middle of the night, stewing underneath all the fabrics laid on her in the sleeping chambers. Talk about pun. If only it was that easy with Abel.
She knew the man had a past. But she was tempted to go get Kate buy something for her to lure Abel into saying the truth more willingly, if you care to put it that way. But that would be just silly. Even for Abel. Still...
While she thought of all the scenarios over, she still thought that was the easiest and less humiliating way to coax Abel into spilling the beans. This was all up her conscience this week. The information she wanted from the priest was shaking her near to the core. But, how do you break to a long time friend, who has been a 900-year-old virgin all this time to keep a dead lover’s promise and stayed by your side partly because of said promise, that he has been—as punks say it these days—laid?
In no time at all, Abel came rushing in with a tea that couldn’t have been thicker than coagulated blood, and more rotting than any candy you’ll find on earth that time in post-Armageddon. Normally, she would shrug it off—but not today. She veered her chair so as to put her chair’s back to face Abel. She called for him to close the door and take a seat. It’s time.
“Abel”, her tone rash as her throat was tightening—she can’t do this,”Did you—um—Tres—“
“Huh?” Abel croaked an unintelligible reply.
Caterina licked her lips.
“You had a mission with Father Tres, correct?” she thanked the Lord that her voice didn’t crack. “Two weeks before?”
Abel could sense something was wrong. “Yes. What about it, ma’am?” Calling her as an official will help him assess the situation more on his side and approval.
He was correct; she was beginning to calm down, and take Abel more seriously but with firm. Then, she looked at him—her face turned blue, then, green— and thought she was ridding rocky road.
'I am going to be sick.'
“Caterina? Why? What happened two weeks ago, while we weren’t here?” He asked sincerely, concern governing his features as he looked at the back of Her Eminence’s stoic chair. Surely if an occurrence so unnerving for the Cardinal had been in the Vatican, they would have heard about it. Especially Tres.
Caterina wished with all her might that she was the chair at that specific moment in her life. She couldn’t get mad at him because maybe, he didn’t know? Aw, cow. She couldn’t get mad because, of all her favorite emotions to swing at her agents, she might had forgotten it along the nights she dreamt of Abel the Horse. Aw, the irony.
After moments of ‘self-motivation’, she drugged herself enough with lies to turn her chair. The lies bringing the queasy thoughts down the Cardinal’s brain drain and more of her confidence showed.
“Cardinal Sforza, status report.”
“I am well, Father Tres.” She said turning back from them. She’s going to be sick. Why of all places did Tres suddenly appear here, right now? She pursed her lips into a thin line. “Is Sister Esther alright, Father Abel?”
“Yes, Cardinal.” He was dead. He could sense it. Even though the Cardinal seemed weak, because of some incidents which he would all but like to speak of it ever again, he held his ground firmly, ready to run. You expect the Duchess of Milan to be gentler. Huh, you thought wrong.
“Cardinal, status report? The medic nuns should have checked on your health with aid from Vatican guards along with Father Wordsworth. You are ailed by an unknown factor—it is in your vital readings.” Tres suddenly appeared in the office; for Abel hadn’t been paying close attention to anything—trying not to lose sight of the Woman of Steel, he jumped and clutched his chest at the sudden noise that was Tres.
Caterina gulped. “I... am fine.”
Tres spun to leave a heaving Abel and a not-so-well Caterina, when all of a sudden she decided that all the fuss would be settled right then and there. The Rosenkreuz Orden was trying something new again with the Fleur du Mal NEO and this was just a silly matter compared to that—and her daily load. But, as they say, women with high career motives in intense working conditions are so well-endowed in their jobs that they tend to lose common sense in other subjects, just like socializing. Even with friends.
So... she’s going to deal with this just like business. Look tall and belittle them in your presence. Always works.
The Cardinal liked her lips, trying not to dry up like a hydrangea in a desert. She could do this. She could do this. She would do this.
Both priests looked at the seemingly helpless Cardinal; she was enjoying the view between the two men a bit too much. She slowly pursed her lips again into a fine line. The Woman of Steel was nervous, really nervous. Now, two of her top agents would be interrogated about a very touchy-feely subject that made up her fears and conjured ‘nightmares’ this past week. And both of them didn’t even get a clue, thinking that they did something really wrong. Really wrong. It would be really bad. Really bad.
“I am so sorry, Caterina. Whatever we missed we can make it up to you.” Abel pleaded with both hands clasping each other for dear repentance of whatever they did, but with a smile in his face. All too evident of his like to get out of her office unscathed—at least, not too badly.
“Cardinal, I have a malfunction and I theorize that this is the cause of my ill performance. But concern of the mission two weeks prior has not been raised to my concern regarding the malfunction; explain the incident, Cardinal, and I shall inform the Professor to upgrade my local systems.” Tres heavily inquired her.
She’s doomed.
They didn’t want to tell her anything of the night two weeks ago? Don’t they trust her? She’s their superior! She’s going to get answers.
“Tell me, both of you—because I don’t have the time for this”, she gathered her courage and... “Did both of you do anything that is NOT in regulation with our code and our vows, oaths?”
“Huh?!” Abel spat out. Nerves were bundling now. What did they do? They did this to her? It wasn’t in the Vatican at all...
“Rephrase question.” Tres asked monotonously.
Tres figured that the Cardinal was not fine and that she was acting strange. He stored that information to tell Father Wordsworth later, to assess her situation and how it affects her health. She needs medical attention, that much Tres is certain.
He blinked.
Caterina gulped.
Abel shifted his elbows, each hand not letting go of the other.
“I have received word of—well—two of you—ahem—“ the last words died away, mumbled out of earshot.
Unfortunately for her, Tres increased his hearing ability up to 30 percent. And, caught her words perfectly as she said them.
“Excuse me?” Abel cooed innocently, just like a child who didn’t hear his teacher right.
“’Doing each other.’” Gunslinger’s voice boomed over the silence that had lain all but threadbare in the Cardinal’s sanctuary. Monotone-schooled to perfection. But there was a crack in his voice, somewhere in that phrase, that only persons that spend too much time with him could notice. Abel was one of those persons.
He blinked.
“Huh?!” he chocked, bewilderment etched unto his very eyes and face, the curves mended into a warp of that sharp emotion.
“Father Nightroad, it is not advisable to use ‘huh’ as a sentence; it is incomplete, therefore, void of correctness.”
“Repeat what you said.”
Abel’s mask had become a part of him; this was inevitable because it was him now. That, in hysterical shock and terror, he moved the way a goofy oddball would—his voice perched just on top of a choked whisper. “Doing—what?”
“Doing each other.” Tres didn’t even blink.
Abel’s world seemed to have been replaced by a place where black replaced every color there is and he started sinking as fast as quicksand would allow. It wasn’t fast enough to beat the start of Abel’s coughing hysteria. He would have been suffocated by it, if it weren’t for the hand patting his upper back while another hand circling little etches was caressing the small of his lower back. It allowed him some calm enough to eventually draw oxygen into his burning lungs.
Breathe. Haaahhhu. Breathe.
In all the chaos that Abel suffered, Caterina was there to witness it all unfold before her eyes. Her eyes puffed—yes, puffed—to the size of saucers when Tres heard her and stated to Abel in a matter-of-fact tone the phrase she aired into thin air. Her heart went out of its ribcage when Abel begun coughing. She was just about to call for Kate when... Tres ‘handled’ the situation. Her eyes fell out from their sockets. She would give anything right now to be a lifeless blood-starved mummy. At least they don’t experience breakdowns.
Imagine Her Eminence stiffening each time, and her shocked trauma-gaze when her eyes beheld Tres securing Abel in his arms like they were close or something.
Are they really...
Caterina simply stared. Tres moved to Abel’s aid because of two reasons—one, the Cardinal would not be pleased having a scene right in front of her resulting in a companion’s hospitalization; and two, this was one way of hitting two birds with one stone—he helps Crusnik get better, the Cardinal gets more relaxed. He evaluated that his boss was a tad bit too nervous today, judging by the way she moved. According to the library’s M36 Book, Shelf 13 of B (Psychotherapy), Terran female leaders act strong outside but there are little ‘quirks’ that give away their ‘inner turmoil’. While Tres soothed Abel in a brotherly embrace and out of rationale, Caterina was not thinking right at the moment.
She wasn’t thinking that he was Father Hercules Tres Iqus, Gunslinger, HCIIIX Gunmetal Hound owned by the Woman of Steel. No.
Her brain melted down enough to soften her grip on reality to totally ensure that the Cardinal now had a successful mental breakdown.
She didn’t think about the fact that he would slice his limbs for her safety. She didn’t think about the times that the Killing Doll was there for her, and only her. She didn’t think about the times that her life was in eminent danger and she was almost to the brink of all mortal peril and he was there, the Killing Doll was there.
She just imply stared at the scene her two AX Agents were fiddled in by her own foolishness, and for good measure, her breakdown.
Abel didn’t see it coming. Tres didn’t see it coming. Even she, herself, didn’t see this coming.
Cardinal Caterina Sforza was plotting with the evil bastards against Rome to help her two prime agents get together—she wanted them together.
Author’s Note:
Hahahaha...
The very idea of THE Cardinal Caterina Sforza—fangirling!
HAHAHAHAHAHA!!
Well... anyway... this is completely crack-ish. I just like torturing Caterina to a breakdown. XD
_____________________________________________________________________Insanely me ;)
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