9: Sailor Dyka
After such a time, surely, with all my writings, I am sure your kind is really beginning to wonder about me. Why was I of such a low opinion of Tsukinousagi? Why did I dislike her so much?
That is easy to answer - because it was acceptable to be hateful. I was not in it for her. I did not care initially whether she was innocent or guilty, save if the sentence she got would be bestowed on me, or I if would be hounded by ridicule afterwards. We really didn't care.
I was really in it because of Dyka's good graces. Without Dyka having appointed me as her assistant and lawyer, I'd have nothing to tell you. Perhaps, then, I should take some time to explain Dyka.
Dyka is from the planet Dyka, naturally, in a system which was allied to ours, in the Cascassa galaxy. She was relatively old, at least in comparison to me, when it came down to it. She had been a sailor much longer than I had, and had been to many places around the universe. One could argue she was a pirate fighter, but much of her fighting was done in civilized worlds - she had not, to my knowledge, been to any Vika galaxies. On the other hand, there is much I have not learned about her, and she had always seemed very knowledgeable to me, even in Vika galaxies. But I digress.
Anyhow, she was allied with many sailors. She was also good friends with Koogairu, and could have chosen her as her partner, since she was in the Seemarin, and would have been more desirable, so to speak. But Dyka found her scatterbrained, and unfit. Or at least that is what she told me.
-You are an outsider. She told me bluntly. -They will not touch you unless you make a true fool of yourself.
I didn't understand what she had meant by they, at least not in the beginning. However, I learned quickly who they were - the people of the press. She did not mean they would not touch me literally, but that if I seemed to be uneasily intimidated by their presence, then I would not be picked apart by those people. But I digress.
Dyka, on the other hand, was one who was always put upon by the press. She was a very well-known soldier, and every day, she had recorders and holographers following her wherever she went. It was not, however, because she was barrister for the cursed defendant of the Great Matter. No, their obsession with her went further back, back when she was younger, and a newer soldier, newer than I was at least at the time of the Great Matter.
The story went back long ago, back during a very terrible battle on a desolate star called Melkweg. Its long gone now, unceremoniously destroyed by order of the Seemarin several years before the Great Matter, but I well remember what was told of it. Upon Melkweg was a powerful civilization in the far, far past of the universe, one which eventually destroyed itself through greed and anger. One could say it is like your world's Atlantis, but imagine Atlantis to be a planet, and far more advanced, and seemingly with the fairest people, having golden hair, strong limbs and quick minds, who were reported to never age or die. Yet, for all their seeming perfection, the planet became overpopulated and the nations killed themselves through petty, needless wars which could have been prevented with sailor soldier intervention. Thus, the star Melkweg has become a classic example that is presented forth to attest to the necessity of sailor soldiers on every civilized planet, as well as the presence of the Seemarin.
She had been fighting a strange, villainous attacker - she never went into more detail than that in all the years she was hounded - and, in the climax, just as Dyka was to finish off the monster once and for all, her opponent took out her weapon - the sharpest sword Dyka had ever known to hit her body - and then sliced deep into her leg. And as her cowardly opponent fled, Dyka was left to bleed to death on that desolate planet surface, far from any help and home. It would be many, many days before she was found, and by then, she was near death.
I often wondered to myself, whenever I heard the story, where her opponent went. After all, it seemed unfair that Dyka should be so injured when the battle was over. I suppose I am a victim of the happy endings which I had always seemed to have as a result of my battles. But I digress.
So Dyka lay on the planet's surface, and they found her, but almost lost her. She lay in a hospital for many days, hovering between life and death, not opening her eyes to the anguish of the many who knew her. Then, one day, she opened her eyes, and found herself with no leg where she had been injured. Her injury had festered so badly, that it supposedly reeked of mold and infection, and only the bravest doctor with the straightest tolerance could stand to cut it off. And for a year after, she had no heart to do anything, for without her leg, she was of no use as a soldier. She simply wandered, got into fights, not against proper villains but against petty hoodlums and bar patrons, as she hobbled, incomplete.
Fortunately, it was not always to be that way. The right help finally found her, and created for her a leg made of the strongest metal that could be fashioned with. It was a little short, so she always walked around with a slight limp. Nevertheless, she returned to fighting, and distinguished herself in battle in so many places, so many times over. She was quite well-known and famous for her exploits, which were more than sufficient to earn her her system's seat in the Seemarin.
Yet, for all of her fame, for all her victories, there was always that guilt that she was defeated by that one mysterious attacker. She was always angry whenever people pressed on whether or not she really knew the identity of her famed, yet unknown, opponent. It was, for her, like a stain on her life, and I knew that she never really got over it. She always strived to be the best, but for all she knew, the terrible blow had been given to her by a nameless, random shadow on the streets she walked upon. Day in and day out, the thought was always there, just lingering in the back of her mind, helped by some random reporter with a tip as to the attacker's identity that, in the end, always led to nothing. Such an indignity could never go away.
