Diminished

By Karen Hart

Disclaimer: The Xenosaga series is the property of Monolith Software Inc. and Namco Bandai. I write these fanfictions for love of the game(s) and make no profit off of them.


It wasn't like Shion to be late. Especially when the subject of the meeting was KOS-MOS.

To be fair she wasn't late yet, but there'd been no word from her and they were supposed to discuss how best to utilize KOS-MOS's Tertiary Weapon System once they reached Gedalian space. Jr. frowned. They were running out of time.

They hadn't dawdled but it was more than a week, closer to two, since the Elsa had been swallowed up by the hypersphere. Slowly but surely the little ship and her crew would be reduced to Planck scale, out of the reach of any rescue. They needed KOS-MOS, which meant they needed Shion, who understood the android's capabilities better than anyone else.

Jr. glanced again at the clock on the strategy room's wall. Twenty-seven minutes to go. He'd heard from the others. MOMO and Ziggy had already arrived, as had chaos. Allen, Juli and Mary were on their way (Shelley was needed on the Durandal's bridge). Jin had mentioned earlier that he might be a few minutes late. KOS-MOS was undergoing maintenance in one of the battle ship's weapons labs.

Still no sign of Shion. Jr. fretted, and tried to look like he wasn't. With what success, that was debatable. On the one hand, he was the Durandal's captain and a veritable combat veteran. On the other, he had the often inconvenient appearance of a twelve-year-old boy—and the mannerisms thereof. He looked around once more and ducked his head when he saw chaos's sympathetic expression.

"Maybe you should call her cabin," Jr.'s best friend suggested.

He had to admit it was a good idea. Shion could have been distracted by something and lost track of time. It wouldn't have been the first time. But—

"I called her up a quarter hour ago," he said. "I didn't get any response." An uncomfortable thought was trying to make itself heard.

chaos was more willing to broach the subject. "Do you think she's collapsed again?"

Jr. traced a pattern on the tabletop. "I hope not. I really hope not." She'd had two fainting spells—and one close call—since they'd been reunited. He hoped there wouldn't be any more. "Part of me thinks I should just let her be and trust her to show up. The rest of me is damned worried."

It had been several months since he'd last seen Shion, but he could see that there'd been a change in her aside from her fainting spells. Something that was cutting her off from the rest of their group. Jr. told himself he was being ridiculous.

"Maybe you should go check on her," chaos suggested.

Jr. had to forcibly restrain himself from rushing out the door. "But—"

"It'll be all right," chaos assured him. "We really do need her input. If you're late getting back that's okay. We still need to figure out how we'll get back out of the hypersphere once we get in. Go on."


He hit the buzzer beside the door of Shion's cabin. Nothing. He pressed it again, longer this time. Still no response.

He was uncomfortable with doing this. He had the ship's master key. But he couldn't shake the feeling he'd be crossing a line if he went in without permission. He tried telling himself it was better to make Shion angry than to risk her health. Jr. raised his hand to the buzzer again, then lowered it.

Damned coward, he berated himself. He knew perfectly well what he was trying to do: he was trying to pretend whatever was wrong with Shion was something minor, something they could safely ignore, so he wouldn't have to add it to his own list of concerns.

To hell with whether it would make her angry. He unlocked the door and stepped inside.

At first he thought the room was empty. It was dark except for the glow of the Network console and the track of safety lights along the base of the wall. Then he saw the figure on the floor and jumped to the obvious conclusion until he saw the movement of her shoulders.

She was awake.

Jr. knelt beside her. "Hey, what's wrong?" She was curled on her right side, knees drawn up part way, staring at the bed frame. "Did it happen again?" He twisted around so he could see her face.

Shion looked away. "No. It's nothing. Really. I'll be right along. Don't worry."

Jr. straightened but didn't move from his spot. "Don't give me that Shion, you're lying on the floor staring at a bed."

"Maybe I find it cozy," she offered as an excuse.

He put a hand on her shoulder, and left it there when she tensed. "Shion—"

She reached up and pushed his hand off. "It's fine. I don't really need to be there, anyway. Allen can handle setting things up. He's the new project head, after all. I'm not really up on the details. Not anymore."

"I'm not sure I want to trust Allen with this," Jr said. "After all, you're the one who knows KOS-MOS best."

Shion rolled over to look at him. He saw that her eyes were red and beginning to swell. "Yeah? And it turns out I knew her well enough to have the company put her on permanent lockdown for six months. Don't take my advice. It's not worth it." She turned away again. "I'm not worth it."

"What the hell?" The words were out of his mouth before he could stop them—though he probably wouldn't have, given the choice.

He hauled her into an upright sitting position, ignoring her protests. It shouldn't have been that easy, but it was—a sign of her recent deterioration. Now that they were alone, he gave her a more critical inspection than he had before.

She was much too thin, he realized. Shion had never possessed much bulk, that he knew of, but now he could see the outline of too many ribs. The bones in her hands stood out, and her collarbone was far too prominent. Her long brown hair was limp and there were shadows beneath her eyes.

Jr. waited a moment, just looking at her. "What do you mean you're not worth it? Don't say 'it's nothing.' I want a straight answer."

It was a while before she found her voice. "You heard about the KOS-MOS Project being cancelled?"

He nodded.

"Allen told me about it. So I went to Fifth Jerusalem to see her. And the development team. When I was there—"

". . . What happened?"

"It was like, like I had never been there at all. They called me Chief but—" Shion swallowed against a lump in her throat. "Everyone was busy trying to analyze KOS-MOS's mock battle data, or they would have been, if I wasn't there. But I was. You know, the team used to come to me with problems. Now it's like I wasn't even there." Her jaw worked as she tried to keep her face steady.

He thought about that. By now he'd heard that she'd been living in solitude on Second Miltia, after resigning from Vector Industries. He should have wondered about her long silence on the network.

Had she been avoiding everyone for the last six months? Her brother Jin lived on the same planet. Surely she hadn't cut him off, too? But of course she would. Those two had a strained relationship. Jr. imagined less and less interaction with others as time went on.

It wouldn't be long before other people became strange and suspicious to her. With no structure to her life, her eating and sleeping habits would break down. That would explain the condition her body was in.

He didn't bother looking at the clock. Shion was in no shape to see anyone. "Shion, that's not your job anymore."

She rubbed her eyes with the heel of her palm. "But that's not—"

"They can't go to you when they don't know what to do. It's not that they don't need you anymore. You have to understand that."

"But I was right there, and no one said a thing. I would have helped."

Jr. nodded. "I know you would. They knew you would. But again, that stopped being your job months ago."

"—Yeah." Shion looked at her hands. "Still—"

"No more of this." Jr. sat back and tried to think of a change of subject. "When was the last time you ate something? You're starting to look like one of the antennas on the service droids." He was pleased to see he'd offended her.

"I do not!"

"You do. Come on," he said, standing up. "The meeting can wait. Frankly you look like crap. We need to do something about that." He pulled her up, and looked upward once she stood.

"Don't think we're done talking about this."